


Nothing to see here! Just a normal family in a normal house, nothing strange at all! :)

by scoodlespog



Series: Minecraft But Spookier [1]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), mcyt
Genre: Adoptive Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Anyways, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Childhood Trauma, FUCK, Feral TommyInnit (Video Blogging RFP), Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, IM JUST TOO FUNNY, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, It gets better I promise, Like, Monsters, No Romance, Older Sibling Wilbur Soot, Past Child Abuse, Platonic Cuddling, The Author Regrets Nothing, TommyInnit-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Twins Wilbur Soot & Technoblade, ahaha cryptids, also ghosts!, also im very slow and i apologize, also tubbo is straight up dead lol, ao3 pls make that atihng, author is a dumb bitch, because i love that shit!, bewarb, cuddle with your friends, dead, fuck you, how are you all?, i fucking love hurt comfort btw it’s my favourite, i just, i swear it’s not as angst as i make it seem, i uh, i will be using this same story with original characters for a comic in the future so uh, idk - Freeform, if you’re on this site you are so touch starved holy shit, ill explain how it works later don’t worryyyy, im begging you, im just, im so excited, im so slow i’m sorry, jkjkjk, just kinda, literally it’s a tommy foster kid fix but there are cryptids, lmao im sorry, lowkey they all have adhd, minecraft is poggers, no beta we die like tubbo in this fic, no beta we die like wilburs victims, no seriously jk, not me hyperfixating on my own damn fic, ok i am actually begging you to let me reorder the tags, ok not rlly cryptids anymore??, one chapter?, one of my irls might find this soo, part of a series but like lowkey?, pls, pls mind the tags, so many spooky boys, spooky people, spooooooky lads, story inconsistencies my beloved, tagging is hard, tags are gonna get updated at random dw this is normal for me, techno is a cryptid, the next stories in this series are so cool, they really just need therapy idk what to tell you, they take time to warm up to tommy, tommyinnit and tubbo are the bestest of friends, tubbo is already de, unless?, very heavy gore in like, very slow updates, what the fuck bro, why, why am i, why am i hyperfixating on my own damn story this isn’t fair, yeah i write slow but i’ll take this one seriously
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 23:47:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29037330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scoodlespog/pseuds/scoodlespog
Summary: Thomas Simons14 yrsblah blah blah, something something...Problem Child.aka: a tommy foster kid fic except everyone is either a cryptid, wants to kill cryptids, not a cryptid but not not a cryptid, or is just along for the ride.(lowercase intentional for the aesthetic)(slow updates, please be patient!)-PART OF A SERIES- (but the other parts don’t exist yet lol)
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s), Ranboo & Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Ranboo & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Toby Smith | Tubbo & Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Series: Minecraft But Spookier [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2130252
Comments: 132
Kudos: 427





	1. Strangers.

**Author's Note:**

> RULES OF THIS RANDOM AU:
> 
> \- they all live in a town where shit goes wrong so often it’s almost funny but it’s not because of how fucked it is
> 
> \- cryptids. CRYPTIDS. C R Y P T I D S. 
> 
> \- many of them are cryptids and spirits, and some of them are mediums, magicians, or monster hunters
> 
> \- this is an extremely elaborate shitpost lol
> 
> \- mediums can see ghosts, even if the ghosts are invisible
> 
> \- magicians are magic. that’s it. i’ll explain it later lol
> 
> \- monster hunters hunt spirits and cryptids and monsters because a lot of said spirits and cryptids and monsters are dangerous. except they’re not. but we’ll get to that :)
> 
> ok on with the fic, you’ll get the idea of this AU soon enough lmao
> 
> SLOW UPDATES. MAY TAKE A WHILE FOR ME TO UPDATE BECAUSE I HAVE NO TIME EVER AND ALSO AHAHA ADHD.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tommy moves in
> 
> kinda

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHAHA HERE WE GOT FUCK THIS TOOK SO LONG TO WRITE. FUCK. THIS TOOK ME TWO WEEKS BRO. THIS IS WHAT I MEAN BY SLOW UPDATES.

tommy tapped his foot on the ground, the rhythm soothing his nerves. this was almost his thirtieth house, and he was sure it would end just as bad as the last ones. maybe this time it wouldn’t be as bad, but give it at least a week and it would all be over. just like it always was. 

he could hear his social worker lisa talking over the phone, but he didn’t register anything she was saying. he was exhausted and just wanted to sleep. but he would never give up a chance to piss off lisa. so he waited until she was done, and looked up when she called his name.

she mouthed a quick “behave” to him before handing him the phone. 

tommy looked at lisa directly in the eyes as he spoke. “so what’s the deal, big man?” he said, a shit-eating grin plastered across his face. 

a laugh sounded from the other line of the phone. the laugh was warm and friendly, so tommy immediately knew not to trust it. “depends,” the man on the phone said. “what do you want the deal to be?”

“i don’t really care, honestly,” tommy said, glancing down at his file.

Thomas Simons  
14 yrs  
blah blah blah, something something...  
Problem Child

yeah. problem child his ass. it wasn’t his fault he was fucked in the head. 

“well, my name is phil. which you knew already,”

tommy hadn’t actually known that. 

“i’ll be picking you up tomorrow. so i thought that in the meantime, we could... chat,”

gross.

tommy rolled his eyes, earning him a glare from lisa. “whatever,” he muttered. 

“cool!” phil sounded actually eager to talk to him. it was unnerving. “so tommy, what do you like to do?”

tommy thought for a moment. “i dunno,” he said. “video games?”

tommy could practically hear phil smiling as he said “oh, me too!” 

fucking what? adults don’t play video games.

tommy grunted.

“what games do you like?” phil asked. he was clearly reaching for something, anything, to talk about. “i like rocket league,”

“how old are you?” tommy said, his tone on the verge of mean.

“oh, i’m 27,”

tommy snorted. “what type of 27 year old plays rocket league?”

silence.

huh. tommy had never fucked up that fast before. it must have been a new record. he made a mental note to write it down.

and almost immediately scratched out that note, because phil started to laugh. tommy didn’t know what to say. he had just insulted the man with zero hesitation, and he was laughing? tommy was at a loss. why wouldn’t he be?

“oh, mate, i get that a lot,” phil said, still laughing. why was he fucking laughing? “what games do you like?” 

tommy shrugged. and then he realized he was on the phone, and simply said “minecraft,”

“dude, i love minecraft!”

what was with this guy? phil is a foster parent, he isn’t supposed to play minecraft and rocket league and say dude without being cringe. he wasn’t supposed to be like that, the man was almost 30! and tommy said all of this, earning a sharp glare from lisa and some snickering from the background of phil’s phone.

“oh hush, will,” phil said , his voice further away from the phone. “no, i don’t care if you think it’s funny, this is important,” he sighed slowly. “fine. come say hi,”

tommy scoffed. phil probably had younger kids if he was using that tone with them. that was until a new voice came through the speaker.

“hi,” the voice was smooth, melodic. it had a more refined accent than phil had, and he sounded... old. “you’re tommy?”

“yeah. what about it?”

the voice groaned. “your voice is annoying,” he said. “dad, are you sure you want this one?”

tommy glared at nobody. “you’re an arse, dude,” his voice was sharp.

“you sound like a ten year old on crack,”

“it smells like bitch in here,”

at that, the voice laughs. “that doesn’t even make sense. what?” there’s some talking in the background. “no, we’re having fun!” more talking. “fine. here,”

there’s a sigh, and then phil spoke again. “sorry about him. he’s...” he seemed to search for something to say. “...he doesn’t do well with change,”

“was that your... your what, your fucking son?” tommy asks.

“yeah, i guess you could say that. his name is wilbur,”

“your son is a dickhead,”

phil laughed at that. what was with this guy? “yeah, wilbur is... no, we arent badmouthing you, will,” more talking from the background. “yes, i know he doesn’t seem to like you. i would hazard to say you don’t like him either!”

lisa motioned to get tommy’s attention. as soon as he turned his head, she hissed a simple “do not mess this up. not many people want you,”

tommy glared at her. “really? is it because my social worker is an absolute bitch?” he said with all the sarcasm and hatred he could possible muster. 

lisa looked like she was about to hit him, and he sent her a look that said ‘do it i fucking dare you’. she didn’t. 

“tommy, you still there?”

tommy scrambled to get back into the right mindset to talk to another human being. “uh, yeah. i’m still here,”

“good, awesome,” phil said. “well, i guess i’ll leave you here. i’ll be there tomorrow at about two to pick you up, ok?” he heard more voices in the background. “just give me a minute, wilbur!” phil shouted.

“yeah. i know. i’ve been told. what, you think i’m dumb or some shit?” tommy deadpanned, earning a sharp smack to the back of the head from lisa and a light chuckle from phil.

“i don’t think you’re dumb, tommy,” well that was a first. “but i’m looking forward to properly meeting you,”

“i wish i could say the same,” tommy said. at this point he was trying to crack at phil’s resolve, trying to get beneath the surface of his stupid Kind Foster Parent schtick. he just knew phil was secretly a massive jerk, he just had to find the right buttons to push. he knew lisa’s, but not phil’s. and he would try his best to find them. at this point, foster parents were experiments, or competitions. where tommy would see what type of parent they were, how mad they could get, how they would punish, and how fast he would be sent back. not particularly in that order.

the first test was the phone call. see the type of person they want the child to see them as. usually, they were nice and smiley, which was just awful. and they wanted to seem cool, so they used lingo that nobody had said for months, and it was just horrible.

but phil was... strange. because he wasn’t overly nice, wasn’t trying too hard, wasn’t anything like the parents usually were. he just seemed... calm. warm.

and when phil laughed and hung up with a quick goodbye, tommy’s mind traveled very far away. and for once, lisa’s yelling and lecturing and finger in his face didn’t bother him all that much.

this was... new.

-*-*-

he was woken by his blankets being ripped off of him and lisa saying “it’s noon. get up and get ready, they’ll be here in two hours,”

tommy had begrudgingly done so, brushing his teeth and putting on deodorant. his hair wouldn’t cooperate, so he didn’t even bother. he selected a random t-shirt and corduroys, and slipped on his sneakers, and waited. he scrolled through instagram, laughed at idiots online, wondering how people could be so goddamn stupid. he typed out some tweets, saving them to his drafts. but he did post one. it simply read, ‘here comes some more strangers more me to fuck with for a couple weeks :thumbsup:’.

it only got 13 likes, but that was better than nothing.

a sharp knock at his door.

they were there.

tommy groaned, slinging his awful neon red backpack over his shoulder before pushing his door open. lisa glared at him.

“listen here, tommy,” she hissed. “do not fuck this one up. phil is a good guy, and my career is riding on you having a successful family. do not fuck this up for me,”

“i think it’s bad practice for a social worker to swear at children, lisa,” tommy said with a smirk.

lisa looked about ready to punch him, hit him, do anything, really. but she waved her arm to the side, letting tommy go down the stairs to the main office.

kids stared as he passed, no doubt thinking something along the lines of ‘oh, there he goes again’. tommy had an air of false confidence, which he had mastered after years of practice. he walked with his chest puffed out, to the tune of whatever song was in his head. he didn’t look down, and walked like this all the way to the office.

phil looked very... different from how tommy had expected. for one, his hair was longer than he though it would be. it stopped just below his chin, and puffed out at the bottom. he was short, and tommy might have actually been taller than him, or maybe the same height. and when phil turned around, tommy was further surprised by bright green eyes and a wide smile. y’know the kind of smile that shows someone’s gums? that kind. tommy had always hated people that smiled like that. they looked fake.

“tommy!” phil said. tommy immediately knew it was phil just from the voice. the warm inflection and sharp tones of his accent were strangely distinct. “good to see you, man,”

tommy shook phil’s hand. “sure. you’re short, phil,” he said. short people were often sensitive about height, so this might work.

but it didn’t.

phil grinned. “oh, yeah, i know. i’ve heard that from lot of people,”

“ok,” tommy said. he wasn’t exactly sure how to talk to phil, especially now that they were in person. 

lisa finally came in the room, a small smile on her face. fake. fake, fake, fake. “well, mr. watson, if you just sign these papers, we can let you go!” her voice was even faker than the smile, jesus christ.

phil scanned the papers, adjusting his round wire-frame glasses. tommy grinned, his eyes glinting mischievously. 

when lisa looked at tommy she mouthed ‘don’t even think it’.

oh but tommy had thought it. and without a second thought, he said “you need reading glasses? what, are you 80?”

lisa looked about ready to stab him, but tommy nodded towards phil. she couldn’t do shit while phil was there. phil had barely even looked up at tommy’s comment, so lisa had even less reason to fuck with him. and tommy smiled at her, an evil little gremlin smile. they both knew tommy was untouchable.

“alright, there you go,” phil said, sliding the forms to lisa and turning to face tommy. “and these aren’t reading glasses. i’m just hella blind,”

what type of almost thirty year old said ‘hella’?

“well, we’ll be off now,” phil said this to lisa, who out on her fake smile again. “you might not get him back!”

lisa’s smile went tight. “there’s no shame if he’s not a good fit for you. he’s always welcome back,” she was lying. she just wanted to hurt him. tommy was an expert at telling when adults were lying, and it really came in handy.

phil laughed, suddenly tense. “for sure. well thank you, lisa. tommy, lets uh... let’s go,”

tommy shrugged, following phil out of the room. “bye, lisa. i can’t wait to see you again!” he called over his shoulder, sarcasm oozing from every syllable.

lisa glared at him.

phil’s car was nice despite the fact that is was littered with garbage, and there were small plush dice hanging from the rear view mirror. stickers were on the back windows, though many of them were partially scratched off. it smelled like fast food and sweat, and tommy almost recoiled. what an awful combination.

phil pulled out of the parking lot slowly, before picking up the speed on the road.

“do you not like lisa?” phil asked.

tommy grunted.

phil nodded. “fair enough. do you want to pick up some food?”

tommy just shrugged.

“ok, since that’s a default yes, we can go to mcdonald’s?”

tommy just looked out the window. god, this guy was chatty.

phil turned on the radio, and immediately changed the channel. “i’m assuming you don’t like hard rock?” when tommy didn’t reply, phil just sighed. “i should probably warn you that i have two boys at home. you met wilbur, but uh... when you meet techno, just don’t... stare. he doesn’t like being perceived, or so he’s told me,”

what the fuck. what type of name is techno?

the ride was peaceful, almost. with the sounds of random pop songs and phil’s off-key humming the only things keeping tommy from being able to sleep. he tried to count all the red cars on the road. it was a hobby he picked up. see how many red cars there were on any given drive. it was the only way to pass the time in long car rides. sure, he had a phone, but the battery was shit and it died insanely fast. so far, he was at eight red cars.

nine, actually.

“what do you want from mcdonald’s?” phil asked suddenly. oh, they were there already? huh.

“uh,” tommy never got mcdonald’s. he scanned the menu board before giving up. “i’ll just have... fries?”

phil gasped dramatically. “just fries?! no, that’s ridiculous, you need food. you look like a goddamn twig,”

tommy was too busy reeling from his tone to register the insult. “ok, then i’ll have a fuckin’ happy meal. the fuck do you want me to say?” he said quickly.

phil nodded. “alright, that’s better than nothing,” he rolled down the window as they approached the order station thing. the other window? “hi, can we have-“

tommy stopped listening. he knew his order, and he didn’t really care about phil’s. eleven red cars. god, he hated this city. so many bad memories were made on these streets. memories of getting beat up, bullying, being kicked to the curb by families who were worse than the others. he remembered walking home alone, his nose bleeding, coming back to a family that had chastised him for fighting, and ignoring when he said that it was self defense. running away, going back to lisa, back when he still thought she was nice.

he would leave this town the first chance he fucking got.

mcdonald’s landed in his lap, the red and yellow box rattling with the sounds of food being tossed around inside. tommy looked at phil, incredulous. “the fuck, dude?!” he yelled.

phil waved at the window lady again. “well, i said your name and you didn’t reply. you were out of it, dude,” he made a sharp left turn. “and god, that lady took forever to get out food. was it not done when we got there?” he sighed. “sorry. ok, let’s talk plans. it’s wednesday, yeah?”

fifteen red cars.

“tomorrow, we can go shopping for your clothes and room,”

wait, what? families don’t buy him shit. that’s not... what the fuck? tommy looked at phil properly. “why?” he asked, his voice almost on the edge of vulnerable.

phil stopped at a light and looked at him. “what do you mean, why? because your room is pretty much empty, and i want you to feel at home. and new clothes are nice. am i not supposed to buy you stuff? you’re the first kid i’ve fostered, y’know,”

tommy didn’t bother answering. sixteen red cars.

phil finally (FINALLY) seemed to get the vibe of the car, and turned up the radio, and stopped talking. that is until he got a phone call. phil answered, cursing under his breath. “hey, tech. i’m in the car right now, sorry about the noise,”

“do you have the kid?” the voice on the other side of the phone was different. american. and monotonous. and... low. growly. 

scary.

phil glanced to tommy as if to check that he was still there. “yeah, he’s here, why?”

“when are you getting back?”

phil checked the time. “uh...” he looked outside. “i’d say ten minutes, at least,”

the voice hummed. and then he hung up.

phil sighed. “what am i going to do with him...” he muttered, mor to himself than anything. “tommy, please promise me you’re not going to be that awkward when you’re older,”

“you say that as if i’ll still be here,” tommy said.

“i...” phil’s eyebrows scrunched together. “i know. but you never know,”

tommy grunted. “i know. trust me, i know,”

eighteen red cars.

tommy felt his eyes sliding shut. phil’s voice stopped registering.

nineteen red cars.

he let the floating feeling of sleep take him, almost forgetting that phil was in the car with him. he felt himself fall asleep.

and then he was awake, being shaken by some guy with a mop of curly brown hair that covered one eye. “you’re awake?” the guy said. oh, this must be wilbur. he had the same voice.

tommy shoved wilbur off him. “yeah, i’m fucking awake. and don’t touch me,”

wilbur raised his arms in mock defence, shrugging. “you do you,” he shoved his hands in his pockets. “you look like shit, by the way,” 

“you don’t look too hot yourself, man,”

“you’re ugly,”

tommy really had to fight the urge to punch the fucker square in the jaw. he grabbed his backpack, pushing wilbur out of the way to go inside phil’s house. at least he assumed this was phil’s house. they were definitely further away from the city, surrounded by farm land and trees. phil owned a farm? in the twenty first century? god, this guy was truly strange. he pushed the door, only to realize it was locked. which would have been obvious if he hadn’t woken up a mere two minutes ago. wilbur snickered from behind him.

“what, phil didn’t give you keys?” he taunted the young blond. “what a shame,”

tommy’s eye twitched. “can you just open the door,”

wilbur shrugged, clicking the lock open and letting himself in. tommy followed suit. phil’s house was also nice. with the dark hardwood floors and beige painted walls, it really looked of those pinterest houses he always saw. there were photos lining the wall of the foyer. some of phil, some of phil with some lady, some of phil and wilbur, and some with a guy with pink hair. tommy kicked off his sneakers, and marched his way into the... kitchen, probably.

phil caught sight of him when he sat down on a stray chair. “tommy, you’re awake! i just didn’t want to wake you, so i asked wilbur. i hope that’s ok?”

tommy shrugged, getting his phone from his pocket. “why do you live on a farm? it’s not 1980,”

phil laughed. “oh, this is just family property. techno’s the only one who really uses it as a farm,”

techno. weird name guy. do not stare at weird name guy.

tommy leaned his head back, looking at the popcorn ceilings. patterns, more patterns. he could spot faces. lisa’s face was prominent. and then they morphed into his old foster father. tommy looked down.

“hey, phil,” monotone voice. weird name guy? “...is that the kid?”

tommy looked up, and holy shit weird name guy really was weird. he has bubblegum pink hair, and it got worse. he had huge bat-like pig ears and tusks protruding from his bottom lip. his eyes were blood red and tired, and he was a head taller than wilbur, and wilbur was pretty fucking tall. shit, was tommy staring?

“yeah,” phil said. “that’s the kid. tommy, this is techno. wilbur’s Kind Of Twin,”

“the fuck is a Kind Of Twin?”

wilbur rolled his eyes dramatically. “god, you’re dumb. we’re pretty much the same age, and since he doesn’t have a birthday he shares mine. it’s literally that fucking simple. how dumb are you?”

“what type of freak doesn’t have a birthday?”

“what type of freak doesn’t have parents?”

tommy just about lunged at wilbur right then and there. but he settled to take a deep breath, and turn to phil slowly. “where’s my room,” it wasn’t a question.

phil nodded, sending wilbur a sharp look, making the brunette shrink back, his eyes wide. phil started going up the stairs, tommy close behind.

tommy’s room really was empty. the walls were the same beige as the rest of the house, and his bed had plain white blankets. there was a bag of sour candies on his dresser, which made him feel some type of way, but he couldn’t quite place it.

“i’m... sorry about wilbur,” phil started. “he can be mean. he hasn’t had much time to adjust to societal rules, y’know?”

“your sons are freaks,” tommy spat. “what the fuck is up with the techno guy? and why is wilbur a huge dick?! your whole house is awful! god, is that why you chose me? cause you thought i’d fit right in with the weirdos?”

phil didn’t reply for a moment. he sighed heavily. “i’m sorry i make you feel that way,”

tommy groaned. “god, i hate you already,” he sat on his bed, throwing his stupid backpack across the room. “just... leave,” (just hit me already, please, just make it normal. please just be like the rest of them, i can’t fucking handle this.)

phil nodded, quietly shutting the door and making his way downstairs.

tommy lied down, looking at the goddamn popcorn ceilings. more faces. his old foster family. he could almost hear the yelling. but he could hear... yelling. phil was yelling at wilbur, probably. he couldn’t make out the words, but just the sounds sent him spiralling. with trembling hands, he fished his earbuds out of his bag, popping them in his ears. he quickly pressed play, and the familiar tones of the pokémon ruby soundtrack started to play. he curled on his side, and shut his eyes tight.

he never fell asleep.

“hey, tommy,” phil’s voice. 

what time was it? oh, ten in the morning. tommy must have forgotten to sleep. he shut off his phone, interrupting a particularity interesting twitter thread. 

phil shook his shoulder, his touch light. “wake up, buddy. breakfast is ready,”

tommy didn’t answer. he was still pissed because phil barely even reacted to his outburst. he should’ve gotten over it, but he didn’t care. phil should have gotten angry, should have yelled at him, chastised him, sent him back, anything. but he didn’t. and it infuriated him to no end.

phil left. tommy sighed and pushed himself up to his elbows. it smelled sterile in his stupid room that wasn’t even his. not really. it was just a hotel room, really. he was going to be gone soon enough, and he could go back to thin sheets and broken mattresses and kids that never slept and woke up crying. tommy had always comforted them. he wasn’t sure why, he hated kids.

he dragged himself down to the kitchen again, where he spotted techno biting into a raw potato as though it was an apple. techno caught sight of him. 

“hi,” the man muttered, looking back down.

tommy sat down and picked at the paint on the table. “hey, big man,” he said, his voice scratchy from not being used all night. “what, uh... whatcha got there?”

techno hummed inquisitively, following tommy’s gaze down to his hand. potato. “right, uh... breakfast,” 

tommy almost started laughing. this guy was too awkward, holy shit. “you’re setting a potato for breakfast, eh?” tommy said, a ghost of a smile behind his words. 

techno shrugged. 

well there’s the end of that conversation, then. 

and... silence.

techno was rapidly becoming tommy’s favourite of phil’s two sons, even though the guy was... well, a freak.

“ok, tommy, you ready to go?” speaking of phil, there he was, the big man himself. “good morning, techno,”

techno waved his hand in a small wave before turning back to his book. when did he get a book?

“mornin, big man. where are we going?” tommy asked.

phil fumbled with his keys for a moment. “shopping. you need some stuff your room, and i was hoping to get you some new clothes,” he met tommy’s eyes for a moment. “sound good?”

tommy shrugged. he pretended not to hear phil’s disappointed sigh. he had heard that too many times for it to properly bother him.

“phil can you pick up some milk while your out?” techno said, monotone as ever. he seemed weirdly... normal. considering he was... probably less than human. probably. “also wilbur doing his thing today, so maybe wait until, uh... late. to uh, come back,” never mind, what the fuck?

phil nodded, shooting tommy A Look. he smiled. fake. “well, that’s no problem. i can take tommy out for dinner or something,” he placed a hand on tommy’s shoulder. and tommy absolutely did not flinch, not even a little. (he did.) “sound good?”

tommy shrugged, trying to subtly squirm away from phil’s hand. somehow phil managed to pick up on the boys discomfort and pulled his hand away. 

phil’s car was just as messy the second time around. it still somehow smelled like fucking mcdonald’s. how? it had been so long since they had eaten in the car. 

oh. tommy hadn’t eaten breakfast. it was probably fine. he’d once gone several days without food, he would be ok for a day. after his outburst, he probably wouldn’t get to eat for at least a couple days. which was fair. he deserved the punishment. he pretty much called the whole guys family weird and said that he hated him, whatever phil did to him was deserved.

“where do you want to go first?” phil asked, eyes firmly on the road.

tommy shrugged.

phil shut his eyes, and tommy could practically feel the annoyance radiating off him. “let me rephrase that,” phil said slowly. “do you want to do your room or clothes first? a one word answer is fine, but i do need an answer,”

tommy hesitated. this was a trick, he could feel it. “...room,”

phil nodded, shooting tommy a small smile. 

they drove in silence the rest of the way. people were out on the street, some in groups and some alone. a group of kids seemed to break a bottle of... probably alcohol on the ground, bursting into laughter. tommy glared at them.

and then they were there. ikea, the big blue and yellow homeowners heaven. tommy followed phil down aisle after aisle, until they suddenly stopped. furniture section. everything there was so... fancy. and expensive. tommy did see some things he would have liked to have, but he didn’t dare speak up about it. when phil asked if he wanted something, he would shrug. if it was a necessity, he would nod. so far they had crossed dresser and desk off the list, and phil was insisting that tommy needed something that he wanted so he’d be comfortable. 

“what about... that?” phil motioned to a red beanbag chair with small white stairs speckled on its surface.

tommy did want it, he really did. but he shrugged.

“you’re interested in that chair?” a voice said. “you should tell him you want it,”

tommy felt the words come out, even though he didn’t want them to. “i want it, yeah,” he clamped his mouth shut. what the fuck? he didn’t say that, did he? he didn’t mean to, he was usually so careful.

phil shot him a bright smile. “awesome! we’ll add that to the list,” he marked off something on his notepad, before looking at tommy. phil made a face, and looked over tommy’s shoulder. “eret? i didn’t know you worked here!”

a laugh. it was very clearly the same voice from before. “oh, yeah. i just started,” the man was... way too tall. and he was wearing thick black sunglasses, and he had borderline wild brown hair. “who’s this?” the man asked, looking at tommy.

tommy shrunk in on himself as phil spoke. “this is tommy,” he said, motioning to the boy. “i’m fostering him,”

eret grinned. “interesting. didn’t know you were a foster parent,” he was lying. tommy glared at him.

“a lot of people don’t,” phil didn’t seem to pick up on the lying. “man, what have you been up to? still in school?”

“nah, i dropped out. grades or something, i dunno,”

“he’s lying,” tommy piped up.

oh. oh, they were looking at him.

eret cocked his head to the side, his smile growing wider. “am i? i hadn’t noticed, i apologize,”

“bullshit,”

“if you say so,” eret’s tone was taunting. tommy decided he didn’t like him.

phil chuckled softly. “ok, tommy, we should be moving on. good to see you, eret,”

tommy glared at eret one last time as they walked away.

“look where you’re walking,” eret’s voice said, though his mouth hadn’t actually moved. 

tommy faced forward just in time to save himself from crashing some lady on her phone. he crashed into phil, though, and immediately braced himself to be hit or yelled at. 

nothing.

it’s always fucking nothing, huh?

-*-*-

they were sat in the car for the better part of an hour at this point, and tommy was starting to get anxious. what could wilbur be doing the required him to sit in the car, alone with phil, for so fucking long? he shut his eyes, trying to block out the silence.

“too quiet, yeah?” phil offered. “do you want me to turn on some tunes?”

“...i really don’t care,”

phil sighed and turned up the volume. a pop song blasted through the speakers, and he leaned back in his chair.

“god, he doesn’t usually take this long...” he muttered, more to himself. 

but tommy wouldn’t give up a chance for annoying questions. “what’s he doing in there anyways?”

phil hesitated. “... that’s not for me to say,”

oh. oh, it was sex. gross. so gross. so incredibly gross.

they sat in the silence of the car, pop songs switching out to radio hosts, then switching to ads. tommy was starting to get sick of phil’s endless patience.

“are you mad at me?” he muttered. “i mean, i insulted you to your face yesterday. arent you pissed?”

phil chuckled lightly. he shrugged. “i dunno, man. you have fair criticisms. our family is weird, we know that much,” he closed his eyes. “and i just thought, y’know...”

“that i’d be a good fit for your family?”

phil nodded.

and the conversation ended.

and... more silence. this guy was fun.

phil’s phone chimed after a while, and the man smiled a little. “ok, we can go inside. wilbur’s done, and i think they’ve finished cleaning up,”

jesus. fucking. christ.

when they walked back inside, wilbur and techno were nowhere to be found. but there did seem to be some stuff on the floor, though it was too dark to see what it was. it looked like ink, almost. that wilbur guy was so fucking weird. 

tommy crept up to his room, and flopped backwards on his bed. he pretended to be asleep when phil cracked the door open, dragging something oddly beanbag chair shaped to the corner of his room. and he tried to sleep, he really did. but this house was strange, creepy. he kept jumping at every little sound.

so you can imagine what happened when someone slammed his door open out of fucking nowhere.

“hey, kid,” wilbur said, leaning against the doorframe. “phil told me i have to apologize for what i said yesterday,”

tommy scoffed. “don’t bother. fuck off, i’m busy,” he wasn’t actually busy, per se. more, he was reevaluating his stupid decision to get the beanbag chair. he did like it, he really, really did. but it was a mistake. once he left, he would lose it. he would lose everything. phil was just wasting money on him.

wilbur plopped himself down beside tommy on the bed. (with its new red and white checkered sheets. he liked those too, they looked like something out of animal crossing.) (wait, when did phil even put them on the bed?) “seriously though, i am sorry,” wilbur said slowly. “i shouldn’t have said that thing about your parents. or, uh... lack thereof?”

tommy didn’t bother answering.

“you in there?” wilbur said, a smile in his voice. “or has tommy exited this realm?”

tommy couldn’t help the laugh that came from his throat. “that was shit, man,” he muttered. why was he even talking to this guy? he was a dick.

“well you’re awfully quiet,” wilbur whispered. “and i don’t like you,”

“we been knew, but ok,”

“but phil likes you. keeps saying you’re a good kid, or something,” wilbur looked at tommy, his eyes softer than they should’ve been. “and i trust phil. he’s a good guy, a really good guy. and if you hurt him, if you want to be sent back, just speak up now,”

tommy couldn’t answer, he just couldn’t.

“good,” wilbur stood up, walking to the door. his frame was a silhouette, like a monster in the closet or some shit. “you’d better wake up tomorrow. you have school, and if you wake up late i’m leaving without you,”

oh, wilbur was driving him.

how wonderful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh god i said the sex word in this chapter oh god oh no


	2. School.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tommy makes a friend then promptly gets beat up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahaha i speedran this shit at like five am. who knew b99 was such a good motivator to write? i didnt. but now i do! not the happiest with this chapter, but i still like it. anyways, ranboo.  
> (not beta read because i’m Lazy)

tommy hated school. sure, that might have been the teenager in him, but it was true. it was too hot and everyone stared at him, and he would get in fights all too often. he never bothered making friends, so he would always go in alone which shockingly didn’t help at all. he would talk to other outcasts, but would mostly keep to himself. which didn’t help with bullying. at every school, he would get fucked with, get in fights, blah blah blah, and then boom he was sent back to lisa. oh the joys of public education.

“oi, kid, get up,” wilbur. what time was it? “get up or i’m leaving without you,”

“go ahead,” tommy grumbled into his pillow. “i dont exactly want to go,”

wilbur sighed. “fine. would you rather come with me and listen to actually good music, or would you rather drive in silence with techno for an hour?”

and so tommy was in wilbur’s car, heavy drums and emotional lyrics blasting from surround sound speakers. neither of the boys spoke, they just listened. well, wilbur was singing, but whatever. it doesn’t matter.

they parked in the lot of a surprisingly giant school, made of red brick and loud kids. and it was a catholic school. barf.

tommy trudged after wilbur, watching as kids greeted the brunette. none of them stuck out at all, mostly because everyone just looked the same to tommy. he zoned out a bit, until he was stood at the front desk of the office. he would probably be there a lot during his stay.

“hi!” the lady at the desk said, her voice high pitched and nasally. tommy decided he didn’t like her. “you must be thomas. i’m nancy, i work at this desk here,” 

well no shit, nancy.

nancy dug around her desk, producing a sticky note and two pieces of paper. “now heres your locker number, and your schedule. i’m sure your brother can show you around!” wait was she talking about wilbur?

tommy narrowed his eyes. “he’s not my brother,”

nancy’s face fell, and tommy premed not to find it amusing. “oh...” she said, suddenly awkward and nervous. yeah, tommy had that effect on people. “well, he can still show you around,”

wilbur groaned, tipping his head back. “must i?” he complained. “but he’s so annoying! surely we can get someone else to... how about him?” 

tomm follow wilbur’s gaze to a thin boy with... wait what the fuck?

“...why are you all looking at me?” 

what the fuck?! ok, this boy definitely wasn’t human. his skin on his left seemed normal, albeit pale, but on his right his skin was... black. and not black as in a black person, black as in the fucking colour. a deep purplish black that seemed to have flecks of amethyst wedged deep beneath the surface. his eyes were weird too, one red and one green. tommy couldn’t help but stare. 

“oh, well, this is perfect!” nancy said, her smile back. “tommy, this is ranboo,”

“what the fuck are you?!” tommy asked, almost accusingly.

nancy seemed taken aback. wilbur snorted, slapping a hand across his mouth. and the boy (ranboo? dumb name. although tommy was living with someone named techno, so.) blinked at him.

“oh, me?” ranboo asked. his voice was calm. “right, you’re confused, that’s uh... i don’t know what i am,”

tommy spluttered to say something, but wilbur cut him off with a cheery “oh, this is perfect! ranboo can show the child around, and i can get back to me child free life,” he smiled at tommy. his canines were too sharp. “i’ll see you around, gremlin,”

and then ranboo stood up. and holy shit was he ever tall. he almost hit his head on the fucking ceiling! tommy stepped backwards, suddenly afraid. this guy could hurt him very bad if he wanted to. he could send him to the emergency room.

“i could, uh,” ranboo looked down, avoiding eye contact with tommy. “yeah i can show him around,”

nancy clapped her hands. “wonderful!” her words had a finality to them. tommy was not getting out of this one. “well, off you go boys. don’t be late!”

tommy followed ranboo down a busy hall, where people parted for them as if they were diseased. running away from ranboo seemed reasonable (the guy was terrifying.) but tommy couldn’t help but be angry. his first impression of Just Some Kid was ruined. he was forever going to be associated with this... freak! he glared at anyone who dared make eye contact with him, though it didn’t do much.

ranboo cleared his throat. “ok, so this is the main hall,” he started. “an-“

“ok, don’t bother,” tommy said, raising up his hand to cut the thing off. “i can find my way around, just... god, you’re super tall,” he hadn’t meant to say that last bit.

ranboo laughed nervously. “oh, yeah. sorry about that,” he scratched the back of his neck. we’re those claws? “i can leave you alone if you want?”

tommy pinched the bridge of his nose. “no, it’s fine,” he hadn’t meant to say that either. “can you just tell me who to look out for?”

“oh, like who’s gonna try to beat you up for being seen with me?” ranboo said, perking up. his tail (TAIL?!) swished the ground happily before coiling itself around the boys leg again. “well, braden is a minor threat, he isn’t very strong. and maria is very mean, so is caleb,”

“no, just tell me who could actually hurt me,”

ranboo hesitated. “...i’m not sure who could hurt you specifically. i get hurt easy, so i can only speak from experience,”

tommy scoffed incredulously. “you get hurt easy?”

ranboo nodded, lifting up the sleeve of his hoodie to reveal white bandages all along his forearm.

tommy couldn’t tell you why, he couldn’t tell you even if he tried, but he suddenly felt the familiar feeling of anger curling in his abdomen. ranboo seemed like a nice guy, and the fact that someone had hurt him enough to do... that? it just pissed him off to no end.

“well who did that?” he asked, hoping that his words weren’t as sharp as they felt. 

“...just some guy,”

“what guy? i just got here, you’re gonna need to give me more than that,”

“his name is, uh...” ranboo thought for a moment. “...i think it was dion? dion hart. yeah, him,”

dion hart.

tommy nodded curtly. “well, don’t worry about him,” he forced his voice to be normal again. “what grade are you in, big man?”

“uhhhhhh...” ranboo checked his schedule, fumbling with the zipper of his backpack for a moment. “...ninth grade,”

“oh, i’m in ninth as well. what class are you in?”

“9C. you?”

tommy hummed, and hoped that would do. he checked his schedule, and there it was, top left corner.

9C.

so tommy was now stuck with this... this weirdo. with the weird name, and the weird features, and the weird... actually, that was it. he was still better than wilbur. so it seemed beneficial to at least stick with the guy, at least until tommy had made himself known.

and how would he do that?

simple.

dion hart.

-*-*-

ranboo laughed, ducking his head down to hide his smile. the cafeteria was loud, and tommy was having trouble hearing what ranboo was saying. so they were writing most of their conversation down, though it was more of a game of hangman than a conversation.

“pog isn’t even a word,” ranboo said. “i should’ve won that,”

“pog is absolutely a word, and you’re so dumb, and bad at this game,” tommy piped up.

was this what it was like to have an actual friend? huh. weird.

ranboo rolled his eyes, drawing up a new game of hangman. he slid the paper to tommy. ten letters? that was ridiculous. tommy went with vowels first, then s, then h, and so on. nothing.

“what are you playing at, dude?” he questioned.

ranboo shrugged innocently. lie.

tommy grinned, scribbling an incoherent word on the paper. “how about that?”

ranboo laughed at that, a quiet wheezing laugh. he nodded, taking the paper and writing an unreadable line of symbols. “well done, you got it,”

tommy laughed, but for real. his loud barking laugh that he hasn’t done for real in a long, long time. he didn’t notice people staring, and he didn’t notice the group of boys making their way to his table.

ranboo blinked, a smile slowly stretching across his face. “is... that your laugh,”

shit.

tommy’s shoulders tensed. he didn’t answer, his jaw and gaze solid steel. he made eye contact with ranboo for a split second before the boy averted his gaze. 

“hey, dorks,” a voice said. “hey tall guy, wanna take a little stroll?”

ranboo’s whole demeanour shifted into something smaller. “sure thing, dion,”

oh.

dion hart.

tommy waited until dion and his gang (and ranboo, obviously.) were out of earshot to follow them. they curved through so many hallways, but it was impossible to lose them. y’know, since ranboo was some weird freak of nature. he followed them outside, and then behind the school. this was bad. obviously. some thugs were leading tommy’s kinda friend outside and behind the school. someone was about to get beat up, and it was definitely ranboo.

“so, what’s the deal today, freak?” dion said. his voice was grating on tommy’s already very thin patience. “legs, arms, ribs, or all at once?” he cracked his knuckles.

ranboo was shaking. “arms. i need my legs to move,” he said. tommy had to strain his ears to hear him.

dion snickered. “legs it is, big guy. god, you’re such a wimp. cant even hold your own in a fight? it’s sad,”

tommy didn’t know what happened after that. all he knew was that he threw the first punch. and then blood was dripping steadily from his nose. and that the world was spinning. why was the world spinning? he didn’t remember jumping in between dion socking ranboo, and he didn’t remember getting hit. all he knew was that his nose hurt and his head hurt and he couldn’t stop now. 

“cmon, blondie, that all you got?” dion said, smirk evident in his voice. and on his dumb smug face.

tommy threw another punch, and there was a series of ‘oh’s from dion’s stupid friends. when dion hit him again, he saw stars, and his vision was painted red and black and swirling shades of green. not a good sign. 

this might’ve been a mistake.

-*-*-

“i can’t believe you beat someone up on your first day, tommy!” wilbur was shouting, and it really wasn’t helping tommy’s throbbing headache. “you could have gotten seriously hurt, you should be glad it’s just this,”

tommy crossed his arms. “the bitch had it coming,” 

“that doesn’t matter!” wilbur shouted. and tommy did not flinch. (yes he did.) “is this why you’re always getting thrown out? because you start fights for no good reason?”

yes. yes it was. but tommy didn’t dare say that.

wilbur sighed, tapping the steering wheel with his index finger. loud. annoying. “ok, i’m taking you to shoppers, we’re getting you makeup to fix your face, but if phil notices how fucked you look i’m not taking any blame. got it?”

tommy nodded. dont fight, just let it happen. take the yelling, you’ll be fine. his tactic worked flawlessly, and it was very helpful when you’re constantly getting shouted at. (cough, lisa, cough.)

they drive in silence. no music, no talking, just silence. tommy’s head buzzed with the weight of it, and it was driving him fucking insane. he needed sound, any sound, he would’ve taken a group of screaming children over the pressing silence he found himself constantly trapped in. he tapped his fingers up and down his leg, looking out the window to distract himself from the deafening quiet.

“you ok?” wilbur piped up, his voice suddenly soft. “you seem tense,”

tommy grunted in response.

silence. too quiet, way too fucking quiet.

he just had to get through one car ride, just one car ride. he could run when the got to the shoppers. he could run, and wilbur wouldn’t be able to catch him. he quickly formulated a plan. when he got out of the car, wilbur would walk in the store while tommy would pretend to tie his shoe. he would run when wilbur wasn’t looking, and he could hide out in... oh, public library, that would work. a solid plan, tommy thought. 

wilbur parked the car relatively close to the shoppers, and got out. just as tommy planned. he followed wilbur enough, and then he stopped, stooping down to untie his shoes. and as he tied them again, he watched wilbur open the door, and go inside the store.

and then tommy bolted. 

he ran as fast as he could, his legs going faster than his conscience. as he almost tripped on a rock, he crashed into a semi-familiar face.

“tommy?” eret asked. “what are you... doing here?”

tommy didn’t respond, he just kept running. he sprinted down the street, finally spotting the public library. he threw the doors open, running to the bathroom and locking the stall door. he pulled out his phone. no notifications. thank god he didn’t have phil’s number. or his sons numbers. he settled to scroll through twitter, calming his nerves.

and then his phone rang.

an unknown number. of course, tommy picked up. mostly because of a mixture of morbid curiosity and the thought that it might be something good. like his real parents.

but it wasn’t.

“where the fuck did you go?!” wilbur shouted. tommy pulled his phone away from his ear. “i was looking everywhere for you, where did you go? phil’s going to kill me, and he’s going to throw you out, and what then? is that what you wanted to do? live in our house, fuck with us for three days, then just... dip?!”

“i mean,” tommy started. “pretty much, yeah,”

wilbur groaned, then it turned into a stressed laugh. “oh, you are so dead when i find you,” and then he hung up.

tommy curled in on himself, willing himself to simply... disappear. he shut his eyes tight, taking a breath. after several minutes of nothing happening, he left the bathroom. the library was almost empty, save for a few people. tommy counted his steps to the door, checking to see if wilbur was anywhere on the street.

and then he booked it further down the street. he had to swerve between multiple people. but he ran. he ran until he was at his most favourite place in the world.

the abandoned playground, at least two miles away from any building, and no one ever went there. he went there whenever he ran off, because barely anyone remembered it was there. it was sad and desolate and made tommy feel at home. he took his usual spot on the swing set, and plugged in his earbuds, letting the sounds of mellohi soothe the tense edges of his brain. 

“now seems like a good time to say hi, i’d say,” a new voice said. “unless you’re busy, uh... doing your thing?”

tommy opened his eyes to see a young boy with fluffy brown hair and translucent skin. 

wait, what?

“oh, you’re awake! can you see me? whenever i talk to people they never seem to see me. isn’t that odd?” the boy said, a smile gracing his ghastly features.

tommy opened his mouth to speak and promptly shut it. he was just tired, this wasn’t real. he thought this until the boy reached out and poked his cheeks.

“wow, you look like a stick,” the boy said, pinching tommy’s ear. “have you been eating, tommy?”

“how do you know my name?” tommy questioned. “also, what the fuck,”

the boy laughed. “oh, i’ve been following you for a while, actually. y’know, since you beat up that dickhead behind your school,” he floated up, and looked at tommy upside down. “and i’m toby. you can call me tubbo,”

tommy snickers. “what, are you a ghost? what’s with the floating?”

“yeah, i am,”

“oh,” tommy looked down. “...cool?”

“i mean, i can fly, so yeah. it’s pretty cool,” tubbo folded his arms behind his head. “so why are you running away?”

“phil’s gonna throw me out,” tommy replied.

tubbo nodded slowly. “cool, very cool. who’s phil?” he spun around in the air. “i’ve only been hanging around you for a day, you’ll have to catch me up,”

so tommy explained. he explained everything in detail, and tubbo listened. they chatted for probably an hour, but they had lost track of time. tommy complained about his old houses, and vented everything that had happened to him, and sometimes about insignificant things, like not being able to sit still and being to scared to jump off a swing while it was still in the air. he vented about his old families, and how they fucked with his head, and how being in phil’s house was a total, mindfuck. and tubbo would chime in with a simple ‘that’s terrible’ or an ‘i’m so sorry’. and it felt safe.

“well, how about you?” tommy asked. “what happened to you?”

tubbo shrugged. “well, i was born in 2004, i’m sixteen years old, and i was murdered,”

“ok, i know that this isn’t the most shocking thing you just said, but you’re sixteen?” tommy said, a small smile on his face.

tubbo laughed. “oh, yeah. i was killed when i was twelve, i think,” 

tommy hummed, thoughtful. “who killed you?” he asked, trying to make his voice soft. 

“...i,” tubbo took a shaky breath. “i don’t want to talk about that,” he whispered.

and they didn’t.

with an effortless subject change (it was actually rather awkward.) they kept chatting about... everything, really. friends, school, parents, (that conversation lasted about three seconds.) books, music, games, etcetera.

and music again. sudden soft singing resonated in tommy’s head, slurring his thoughts and muddling his brain. the edges of his vision went dark.

tommy felt his eyes drooping shut, and he leaned his head against the chains of the swing. he felt himself being lifted by someone, but he didn’t really care. he leaned into the warmth, and he let tubbo’s voice drone on in the background, lulling him to sleep.

-*-*-

when tommy woke up, he was on the couch. he groaned, flopping himself onto his stomach. the sudden scent of fire and candles hit his nose, and he jumped, hitting his head on the... roof? oh, he was in wilbur’s car. and tubbo was beside him, poking his cheek lightly.

“oh good, you’re awake,” he said, smiling widely. “this guy has been mumbling about you this whole damn time!”

tommy blinked slowly, looking to the drivers seat. wilbur was tense, tapping the steering wheel at a much faster pace than before. when wilbur looked in the rear view mirror, he sighed, relief showing in his eyes.

“tommy, you’re awake,” he said, looking back to the road. “and now, not only am i going to kill you, phil is going to fucking slaughter you,”

tommy closed his eyes again, wishing for the sweet release of sleep to take him again. “yeah, i know,” he muttered.

tubbo let out a low whistle. “damn, this does not seem good for you,”

“shut up, tubbo,”

wilbur shot him a look. “what was that?” he asked.

tommy didn’t bother answering.

-*-*-

the house was quiet, despite both phil and techno being home. tommy was getting really tired of the constant lack of sound. while he and wilbur were walking to the door, tommy almost ran again. but wilbur’s surprisingly strong grip on tommy’s arm stopped him. 

tommy was pretty much thrown on the couch by wilbur, earning a quiet ‘yikes’ from tubbo. tommy waited for about ten minutes, listening to a hushed conversation happening from the kitchen. tubbo was just twirling around, exploring the living room. still too quiet. he made no move tu put his earbuds in, because this situation was dangerous. 

was that blood in the carpet?

footsteps were nearing tommy, and he shrunk in on himself. what he wouldn’t give to have superpowers right now, because turning invisible would be really useful.

phil sat across tommy on the cream coloured rocking chair. old man, much? he sighed slowly, resisting his elbows on his knees and carefully placing his chin on his hands. he didn’t speak for a long time.p, letting tommy stew in his nervousness.

“...tommy,” phil started, his tone careful and calculated. “i... don’t know what i’m supposed to say here, i really don’t,” he chuckled softly, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. “what do you need me to do, tommy?” he sounded desperate.

tommy squirmed under the mans gaze. he didn’t know. 

phil dropped his head in his hands, covering his eyes. “please, i need you to talk to me. just once. please?”

tommy crossed his arms over his chest. “...fine,”

“can you answer my question? because i don’t know what to do here, man,”

tommy shrugged.

phil groaned. “i need you to work with me here! please just tell me how i can help, or i... i might have to send you back, tommy,”

was tommy supposed so care? “ok. and?” he said. “it’s not like i haven’t been sent back before, old man,”

“well i don’t want to have to do that to you!”

“i don’t care,”

phil looked surprised, though he shouldn’t have been. he looked down. his entire figure seemed to collapse. “tommy, please,” he pleaded. “i just need you to cooperate. i am legit begging you at this point,”

“fine. i’m cooperating. what do you want?” tommy spat. his split lip angrily throbbed at him.

phil sighed, searching for something to say. “...why did you run?” he asked.

tommy shrugged. which was difficult, considering tubbo has somehow fallen asleep on his shoulder. “i wanted to,”

phil nodded slowly. “ok...” his eyes wandered to beside tommy. “and why do you have a ghost with you?”

“you can see him?” tommy asked, letting go of caution for a split second.

phil nodded curtly, leaning back in his chair.

“oh. uh...” tommy tried to find a reasonable answer. “he’s just... hanging out?”

phil smiled a little. “uh-huh, sure,” 

“well i don’t know, then! he’s asleep, so i can’t exactly ask him, now can i?”

phil nodded again. “next question,” he looked back at tommy, his eyes piercing. “are you ok with letting me in?”

tommy snickered. “letting you in where? this is your house, dumbass,”

“i know, tommy. are you ok with letting me into your life?”

oh.

tommy hadn’t been expecting that. and to be honest, he didn’t have an answer. he was ont sure if he was ok with it. he didn’t trust phil, but he didn’t exactly not trust him either. so he shrugged, hoping that would be enough of an answer. because he didn’t know, he just didn’t know.

phil nodded, frowning. “ok,” he whispered, pushing himself up to his feet. “that’s ok. off to bed, ok?

“its only nine o’clock,”

phil sighed. “ok. fine, stay up. just be in bed before one, ok?”

“even if it’s twelve fifty-nine?” tommy joked.

phil laughed. “sure, if you can do that,”

“just watch me, old man!”

“i’m really not that old,”

“you seem pretty old...”

phil narrowed his eyes, but his amused smile gave him away. “listen here you little shit,”

tommy laughed, and shut his bedroom door behind him. he sunk down to the floor, a smile still stuck on his face. why was he so happy? phil hadn’t done anything extraordinary, he had just said what all of the other Fake Parents wouldn’t. maybe that was why?

maybe phil wanted him there. at least for now.

maybe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uwu
> 
> ranboo, my beloved, i’m sorry for being mean to you. also the clingy duo are finally together akdjka  
> again, not super happy with this chapter. also updates will be wayyy slower from here on out, because i only had two chapters written before i started posting this, so i do apologize for my incredibly inconsistent posting schedule. it’s fine, you’ll get used to it.
> 
> also i am uhhh not a writer. i’m an artist, and this is the first real story i’ve ever written. so if you like it, that’s super cool and poggers! also i’m a very shit writer, i’m aware, and i’m very sorry.
> 
> anyways follow my instagram and twitter @ohifonlyyouknew if you want to see more of my work (which is mostly just art and Bad Jokes)


	3. Jamie.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tommy has a fun chat, and wilbur has a mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boy. we are getting into it. (for context, it’s been two days since the last chapter. tommy has had time to warm up, but not a lot. that’s just for context.) writing techno and wilbur is so fun what the fuck

tommy was simply not paying attention. his teachers voice was so boring, and droned on while he stared at the ceiling, mapping out the dots and holes in the white rectangles. he was vaguely aware of his leg bouncing , but he couldn’t bring himself to give a shit. 

“tommy,” tubbo whispered. “aren’t you supposed to be paying attention?”

oh, also tubbo was there.

tommy couldn’t exactly reply, because people would think he was fucking crazy. nobody could see tubbo (unless they could, tommy didn’t know.) so tubbo had followed him to school. and though tommy had explained that he couldn’t talk to him when he was at school, tubbo seemed to have... forgotten? tommy didn’t care, really. he can deal with the ghosts constant chatter if it meant not having to give a shit about school.

ranboo tapped his shoulder suddenly, earning tommy’s reluctant attention. “you ok?” ranboo whispered. “you seem out of it,”

tommy shrugged, looking back at the ceiling. “what gave it away?” he whispered, only half joking.

ranboo smiled a little bit, and turned back to his paper. “we have a test tomorrow, by the way,”

two days at school and there are already tests? that was so dumb. so incredibly dumb and also so incredibly predictable. but honestly? tommy didn’t care. he’d failed grades before. and besides, this was just english class. he spoke english fine, so he didn’t see why he had to care. so he didn’t.

“tommy, you in there?” tubbo piped up, poking tommy’s cheek again. “or are you just completely fucking out of it?”

tommy rolled his eyes, grabbing a sticky note and writing down what he wanted to say on it. 

‘tubbo, i love you man, but i am literally begging you to shut the fuck up’

tubbo shrank a bit, lowering himself to the floor. “oh,” he said, still upbeat. how? “ok, that’s fine. ooh, i can go bother some bitches across the street!” and with that, he was gone.

tommy, slightly concerned, forgot that ranboo could read tommy’s scrawled note.

“who’s... tubbo?” ranboo asked, struggling a bit with the (admittedly very strange) name. and the fact that tommy’s handwriting is absolutely atrocious probably didn’t help either.

tommy shrugged. “just a ghost,” there was no point to lie, was there? “he follows me around. very chatty,”

ranboo, furrowed his eyebrows. “oh... kay?” he nodded slowly, turning back to his paper with a small shake of his head. he didn’t ask any more questions, which was probably a good thing, considering... yeah. yeah, it was a weird situation.

and finally (fucking finally.) the bell rang. tommy gathered notebook, and marched out of the class. he only brought one notebook for every subject, and kept his pencils in his pocket. it was compact, and easy, and he never took notes anyways, so it worked. he waited for ranboo, and watched kids go by. (god, why did that kid take literally forever to come out of class? sure, he was friendly with teachers, but did he really have to talk to them after every class?)

“hey, blondie!” someone said.

tommy groaned, turning around to face the bitch himself.

mr. dion hart, everybody!

“you waiting for your... friend?” dion asked, a sneer painted on his features.

tommy ignored him, turning his attention to his phone.

“hey, i’m talking to you!”

and then tommy’s phone was on the floor. dion had hit it out of his hand, and was very clearly pissed about something probably unimportant.

“it’s rude to ignore people when they’re talking to you,” dion hissed, getting up in tommy’s face. he smelled like bad breath and some type of fruit flavoured soap. “wouldn’t your mommy tell you that? oh, right,”

“just do what you came to do, man,” tommy said, shoving his hands in his pockets. he found it. wilbur’s switchblade, that tommy definitely did not steal. just in case, y’know? just in case.

dion smiled, but there was no joy in his expression. “oh, so i’m not allowed to talk to a friend?”

“we ain’t friends,”

“fine. whatever. i just need to know who you’re living with,” 

tommy glared at the boy. dion’s hair was greasy. “why?” he asked, standing a bit taller. dion and him were pretty much the same height, though tommy was taller by the smallest amount.

dion shrugged. “why does it matter? i’ve just heard rumours, and i wanted to confirm,”

“what rumours?”

“rumours that you’re living with that tall weirdo,” dion nodded towards the classroom, where ranboo was still chatting with the teacher. jesus, what conversation needed to be had for that long?

tommy rolled his eyes. “fine. i’m living with this old guy, and wilbur and his brother,”

“wilbur... the guy with the...” dion covered one eye with his hand. “the guy with the hair?”

tommy nodded, and turned to look back at ranboo. god, would he just hurry up?

“cool! well, i’ll see you around, blondie,” dion said. he punched tommy’s arm. hard. he slunk away, his stupid greasy hair and stupid greasy face sliding around a corner.

tommy made a face in his direction, though no one could see it.

“hey!” ranboo’s voice, thank god. “was dion bothering you?”

tommy shook his head, starting to walk to the cafeteria. “nah, we was just chatting. sorta,”

“sorta?”

“y’know when people you despise try to be nice to you?” tommy plopped himself down at their usual table. “he was doing that shit,”

ranboo’s face scrunched up. “oh, gross,”

“agreed,”

-*-*-

“hey, tommy!”

tommy rolled his eyes, tipping his head back to see who was at the door. he looked back down as soon as he saw, going back to Not Studying For His Test. “hello, wilbur,” he said. “what do you want?”

wilbur sat himself down in front of tommy and smiled. “i just wanted to talk to my favourite random child!”

“then talk to another random child, i’m busy,”

wilbur tapped his chin a couple times with one finger. “do you want me to save you from... what is this, english homework?”

tommy shaved wilbur away. “yeah, fuck off,”

“fine, fine,” wilbur lied down beside tommy, poking the beanbag chair. “what’s the homework?”

“i don’t need your help, bitch,”

“i’m not offering help,”

“good!”

and silence. unless you count tommy’s earbuds blasting the new horizons theme music. which tommy did, because it’s a damn good theme. he looked back to his work, and he realized that yeah he was not doing this work. no way.

he shoved his notebook aside, turning to face wilbur. “fine. let’s chat,”

wilbur smiled, his eyes lighting up. “really?” he said, disbelieving.

“you’re awfully excited to talk to me, huh?” tommy said, a lopsided smile plastered on his face, but mostly to be polite.

“oh. you can tell?”

tommy laughed. like, a full on Tommy Screech Laugh. he hadn’t done that in a while, or at least he hadn’t remembered doing it in a while. wilbur laughed along, his bangs fully hiding his eyes as he looks down at his hands.

when they finally calmed down, wilbur went oddly quiet. “...what was your least favourite foster house?” he asked. “you don’t have to answer,”

tommy blew some air out of his nose, humming as if deep in thought. “some dick named jamie and her awful kids,” he decided. he remembered her very clearly. thin blonde hair and an ugly sneer, always directed at him. “she was horrible,”

wilbur made a small noise in the back of his throat, and coughed. “ow, fuck,” he said between coughs.

tommy snorted. “you good, mate?”

“oh, yeah, i’m fine,” wilbur said, his voice raw and broken from coughing up a goddamn storm. “i’m good,” he cleared his throat. “so jamie? what was so bad about her?”

tommy shrugged. “i dunno. she was shouty and mean and locked me in the closet a bunch of times,” he said. “i dunno, she was just rude,”

wilbur stared at him, searching for... something. “she... she what?”

tommy looked away, and back at wilbur. “what?”

“what’s he asking?” tubbo asked.

tommy jumped about three feet in the air, startled. when did tubbo get there? wilbur seemed to have noticed a second presence, and when he caught sight of tubbo his eyes went wide.

“who the fuck is that,” he asked, disbelief in his voice. before tommy could answer, he held his hand up to cut him off. “never mind, not now. back to my question,”

“well what was the question?” tubbo piped up.

tommy nodded. “yeah, it was very unclear,”

“i didn’t understand at all,”

“me neither,”

“you need to know what a question is to answer it, yeah?”

“that’s very true, big t,”

“can i speak, please?” wilbur interjected, pinching the bridge of his nose. “my question was,” he looked at tommy, his eyes gentle. “did this lady seriously lock you in the closet?”

tommy tensed up, drawing his shoulders to his ears. he hadn’t meant to tell wilbur about that but. tubbo knew because of their chatting at the park where they first met, but he hadn’t meant for anyone else to know. he looked down at his hands, trying to ignore his legs itching to move, run, walk, anything. anything but answer that stupid fucking question.

he stayed silent for a long time.

and wilbur waited. he waited patiently, and looked at tommy with kind eyes. (were his eyes red? why were his eyes red?) he reached out to grab his hand, but seemed to give up halfway through.

tubbo sat there, watching, his eyes flitting between the two boys as if to decipher some type of hidden conversation. 

tommy huffed softly, looking anywhere except wilbur’s eyes. “yeah, she...” he cleared his throat, the nervousness making his vocal chords stop functioning as they should’ve been. “she did,” he admitted.

wilbur looked down, opening his mouth as if to say something, but nothing came out. he brought his hands to his mouth. “i see,” he whispered. he looked back up at tommy, his eyes angry despite his sad smile. “i’m sorry that happened to you,”

tommy shrugged.

“do you want a hug?” wilbur asked, spreading his arms a small bit. his thin yellow sweater flowed with the motion.

tommy rolled his eyes, though his brain was yelling at him to accept it. “no, i’m good,” (please hug me. please, i’m fucking begging you.) “i don’t like being touched,” lie. lie, lie, lie, lie. “but thanks for the offer, you big baby,” (please don’t let the conversation go, ask me again, please, i’ll say yes, please please please please.)

wilbur gasped in mock offense, placing a hand on his chest. “the child dares to call me a baby?” he exclaimed.

tommy laughed, looking back down. (he was disappointed. he missed his one chance to... he didn’t know what he missed, really, but he knew he missed it.) “yeah, how dare i,”

wilbur chuckled with him, but his expression turned serious again. “tommy, seriously. i am sorry,” he reached forward, silently asking for permission to take tommy’s hand. 

tommy let him.

“what was jamie’s full name?” wilbur asked softly.

tommy narrowed his eyes. “why,”

“i don’t want her to mess with you again,” 

lie. big fat fucking lie.

tommy let it slide.

he gripped wilbur’s hand tighter, blinking quickly to keep his anxiety from showing. “her name is jamie sporm,” he said. the name tasted sour on his tongue. “please don’t murder her,” he added softly. he was only half joking.

wilbur grinned. his eyes were soft, but there was something else behind his expression that tommy didn’t really like. “no promises,” he was only half joking.

-*-*-

“hey, did you hear what happened last night?” ranboo said. they were walking (tubbo was floating.) to the cafeteria after a long hour of sitting still and listening. except only one of them was actually listening.

tubbo gasped. “something happened? was it murder?”

tommy lightly hit tubbo in the arm. “dude,” he whispered.

tubbo apologized halfheartedly.

ranboo plopped down at their table, grabbing his usual Bagged Cinnamon Roll (as he called it, caps and all.) from his bag. “they don’t know yet. heard some guys talking about it on the news. they said some lady went missing,”

tommy’s blood ran cold.

tubbo’s eyes went wide. “no way, that’s insane,” he said excitedly.

some lady, huh?

“what type of weirdo watches the news for fun?” tommy asked, trying to sway the conversation away from the missing lady.

ranboo swallowed a bit of Bagged Cinnamon Roll. “my roommate turns it on in the morning, i don’t actually watch the news because i want to!”

“i have a very difficult time believing that, your favourite class is goddamn social studies,” tommy spat, keeping his tone light.

“because i like learning about history!” ranboo protested.

tubbo hummed a song under his breath, enjoying the show. “anyways, who d’you think the missing lady is?” he asked.

tommy repeated tubbo’s question to ranboo. he really had to fight the urge to roll his eyes as he said it. “and we don’t know, tubbo,” he continued.

“all i remember on the news people saying was that she’s a mom,”

a mom. the rando lady was a mom. tommy swallowed his nervousness.

he was going to have a nice, long chat with wilbur when he got home.

-*-*-

jamie sporm had officially been declared missing.

-*-*-

wilbur was washing dishes, humming an upbeat song under his breath. techno was sat at the island, flipping through a frayed notebook. tommy was on the couch, watching wilbur carefully, searching for anything amiss. only to find... nothing. wilbur seemed perfectly normal.

how are you supposed to ask about this stuff? (“oh, hey wilbur! i was wondering if you knew about the lady that went missing? yeah, my old foster parent? did you murder her by any chance?”) so tommy waited for something he could go from. maybe techno asking about the news, or wilbur asking tommy how his day was, anything like that would have worked. but the room stayed quiet, save for the flipping of pages from techno’s notebook, and the clanging of dishes from the sink. 

tommy waited.

“god, wilbur, your seventh grade poetry is so upsetting to read,” techno said. his voice didn’t change at all, but tommy assumed he was... not sad? the guy was impossible to read. as for the book, he assumed it was wilbur’s. but he wasn’t sure.

wilbur laughed, flicking water off his hands. “you’re one to talk,”

“i didn’t write poetry in seventh grade,”

“dude, did you not do anything embarrassing in seventh grade?”

techno shrugged. “i associated with you,” he deadpanned.

tommy choked on his water as wilbur made a surprised face, which turned annoyed, which turned into a wide smile.”i’ll get you for that, man,” wilbur said.

techno hummed thoughtfully, flipping another page. “god, what even is this?” he said, scanning the page. and then his eyes lit up. “holy shit, wilbur,”

wilbur leaned over his brothers(?) shoulder, and read whatever he was looking at. his face quickly went red, and he went to grab the notebook, failing miserably. “techno, give it!” he whine-growled. “it’s mine, you jerk,”

techno easily held the book over wilburs head, tilting his head up to read. “‘dear niki,’” he read aloud, a half smile on his face. (techno? emoting? does not compute, please try again.)

“techno, give it back!” wilbur was almost frantic at this point.

techno locked eyes with tommy. “shall i do a dramatic reading?”

tommy smiled. “please do,”

“no! don’t read my worst moments to the child!” wilbur pleaded. this was almost sad to watch. mostly funny, but almost sad. “just give me back the notebook!”

techno cleared his throat, holding wilbur at arms length very easily. “‘how do i say this?’” he read, ignoring wilbur’s protests. “‘i’ve liked you since i first saw you,’ liked is spelled wrong. how do you spell ‘liked’ wrong, wilbur? how did you manage that?”

“give me the fucking book!”

“‘and my brother talked me into writing this’, oh, i’m in your love note, cool,” techno continued. “‘so i was wondering if you’d like to go out sometime. you don’t have to, i’m just asking, because i think you’re super cool and pretty.’ wow, wilbur, you did not use commas at all,”

wilbur finally gave up, hiding his face with his hands, the tips of his ears pink.

techno chuckled to himself, but his face promptly defaulted back to its usual unfeeling state. he looked back to the book. “oh god, you got so mushy,” he flipped to the next page. “did you ever send this to her?”

wilbur shook his head, dragging his hands down his face. 

tommy was laughing too hard to say anything. 

“ok, calm down,” wilbur shoved tommy’s shoulder lightly, but he was smiling too. “techno...? techno, what are you doing?”

techno shrugged, his phone in hand, very clearly taking a photo of the note. “nothing, why do you ask?”

wilbur leaped to his feet, lunging for the phone. “delete those!” he was probably going for angry, but it came out more squeaky and panicked. “techno, i am literally begging you!”

“then beg,” techno said. he was holding his phone high above his head, well out of wilbur’s reach.

wilbur spluttered for a moment. “wha- no? that’s my personal shit, you can’t just-“

“i’m not sending it to anyone, i’m just keeping it for... later purposes,”

“what the fuck does that even mean,”

“depends,” techno fixed his brother with a stare. “now i have leverage if you ever decide to piss me off,”

wilbur groaned, grabbing technos shoulders and shaking him around. “techno, what must i do to get you to delete those pictures?”

techno shrugged and looked at tommy. “what must he do, gremlin?”

tommy grinned maliciously.

wilbur’s eyes went wide. “no. no, techno, please don’t give the child control of this,”

“he has to... be my assistant for a month,” tommy decided.

wilbur was not having it. “what?! no! that’s so dumb, techno, please tell him to pick something different, please,”

techno nodded to tommy. “no, i’m actually pretty good with that arrangement,” he said. “but only if i get a month of free labour as well,”

tommy pretended to be deep in thought. “fine,” he said. “we have a deal,”

“i did not agree to this,” wilbur protested. “techno, you can’t seriously be considering this,”

“i’m not,” techno said, turning his phone off and shoving it back his hoodie pocket. “i’ve already decided,”

tommy threw an arm around wilbur’s shoulder. “alright, let’s get to work, bitchboy!”

“i don’t think i’m ok with that nickname,” wilbur said, defeat in his voice.

“well you don’t get to decide that, bitchboy,” tommy shoved wilbur up the stairs. “now let’s go, you have homework to do!”

tommy thought he caught techno smiling as he was pushing wilbur to his room. he must’ve been seeing wrong.

-*-*-

“i forgot how stupid eighth grade maths is,” wilbur muttered to himself. “what the fuck is a pythagorean theorem?”

“triangles and shit,” tommy replied. he was absolutely destroying some cpus in mariokart, and hadn’t shut up about being So Good At The Game since he won the first race.

“blue shell,” wilbur pointed out.

“the fuck do you want me to do about it? i’m not giving up my spot!”

“you are... so dumb,”

tommy gasped, offended. “how dare you, bitchboy!” he crossed the finish line, landing himself a solid second place. “if i’m so bad, why don’t you play?”

“i’ll destroy you,”

“whatever you say, bitchboy,”

“i really do not like that nickname,”

“well you can’t change it,” tommy stuck his tongue out at the older boy, tossing him a wii remote. “why does phil even have a wii?”

“because he’s old,” wilbur answered simply, picking his character. “i wish i could pick one of the new guys, these characters are shit,” he made his selection. yoshi on a motorcycle. classic.

tommy went with Big Man Bowser (or so he called him.) in a Badass Rocket Car. (or so he called it.) “who’s so special in the newer games?” he asked.

“metal mario, dude,”

“you have awful taste,”

the race started. coconut mall. tommy sang along to the music, very off-key (but wilbur didn’t mention it.) but he was having fun. he ended up losing, but was too busy cussing out the robot playing as baby peach to care.

“she’s horrible, wilbur!” he complained.

wilbur snorted. “she’s a fictional baby, tommy,”

“fuck baby peach,” tommy said, completely ignoring wilbur. “all my homies hate baby peach,”

wilbur shoved tommy’s shoulder affectionately, going back to tommy’s homework. “whatever you say, child,” 

silence.

tommy flopped backwards on his bed, giving up on mariokart, and instead settling to map out the patterns in the ceiling again. he had memorized the corners, but he was still imprinting the rest into his memory. he laughed a little. four days at this house, and the only thing he had accomplished was memorizing patterns from a ceiling. it was pathetic, if he was being honest.

“tommy,” wilbur piped up. “what’s a hypotenuse?”

“it’s like... the part of the triangle? i dunno,” tommy shrugged, pulling out his phone. there was a long crack going from one corner to another, probably from when dion threw it. “the one that’s diagonal,” he continued.

wilbur hummed appreciatively.

tommy sighed, finally giving up on the small talk. “so jamie sporm went missing last night,” he started.

wilbur lifted his eyes to meet tommy’s, not moving his head. “did she really?” he looked back down. “how unfortunate,”

“i know you did something, wilbur,” 

wilbur raised an eyebrow, looking at tommy again. “i didn’t do anything,”

tommy narrowed his eyes at the man. “you’re lying,”

“i would never kidnap anyone, tommy,”

“would you murder someone?”

“what?” wilbur laughed a little, furrowing his eyebrows. “i thought she was missing, not dead,”

“they don’t know yet,”

“ah. well no, i wouldn’t murder someone. unless they killed my family,”

“those are oddly specific circumstances,”

“are they?” wilbur asked, looking back down to tommy’s worksheet. “i would assume at least some people feel the same,”

tommy groaned. “just tell me what you did!” he threw his arms over his face. “there’s literally no way this is a coincidence,”

“is this your first time in the town?” wilbur asked.

“weird question, but yes,” tommy replied. “don’t change the subject,”

“i’m not!” wilbur said defensively. “i’m just saying that you haven’t lived here for very long. people go missing very often here,”

“that’s not a good thing,”

“you think i don’t know that?”

“how dare you disrespect your boss, bitchboy,”

wilbur laughed, shaking his head. “you’re a prick,”

“i know. i’m awesome,”

-*-*-

wilbur slammed his hands down on phil’s desk, his eyes fiery. “phil, i need to see tommy’s file,”

phil sighed. he was used to wilbur’s strange behaviour, and asking for random shit. but this was crossing a line. “will, i can’t give you that,” he explained slowly.

wilbur rapped his fingers on the wooden surface of phil’s desk. “it’s important,”

“no,” phil said. it was final. he looked down at his plans. the measurements were wrong. “did you hear the news?”

wilbur shook his head, sitting on phil’s desk. “which news? the thing about the jamie lady?”

“yes,”

wilbur nodded slowly. “yeah,” he muttered. “what about her?”

“you know what i’m asking, will,” phil said, giving his sorta son a sharp look. “did anyone see you?”

“no, nobody saw me,”

“why her?”

wilbur hesitated. he didn’t want to admit that he was trying to protect the random kid phil decided to bring into their house. he didn’t want to admit that he like the boy. he didn’t want to tell phil why he needed tommy’s file. “...reasons?” he said.

phil dropped his pen, rubbing his temples. “will,” he warned subtly. “you know i’ll find out eventually. you’re terrible with secrets,”

“fine, it’s because of tommy,” wilbur blurted out. “he told me about how that lady would lock him in the closet, and i overreacted, but i swear she deserved it,”

“she was a mother,”

“she w-“

“wilbur,” phil cut him off, his eyes sad. “i know you’re protective,”

“no i’m not,”

“but you can’t just... choose her, and just because she did something to tommy. ok?” phil stood up to be in front of wilbur, placing his hands on his shoulders. “you need to put more thought into you decisions,”

wilbur looked down. “i just... felt bad,”

“i know,”

“i need the file, ok? i-“

“will,” phil said, his voice steel. “i’m not giving you tommy’s file. end of discussion,”

wilbur nodded slowly, saying a quick goodnight, and stalking up to his room. there was still blood on the carpet. he would have to clean that later. he took his guitar, plucking a couple chords before hearing techno knock on their shared wall. wilbur knocked back, waiting for a reply. they had memorized morse code so they could talk secretly at night without phil getting pissy because they got too loud.

‘hey techno,’ wilbur tapped out.

‘what’ came the reply. ‘is this about the file’

‘how did you know’

‘i’m all knowing’

‘bullshit’ wilbur chuckled fondly. ‘can you get the file’

‘phil’s gonna kill u’

‘i could not care less’

techno went silent for a moment. wilbur went back to picking at the strings of his guitar, humming quietly. he heard the shuffling of paper, and looked to his door when he heard a knock.

there was the file. yellow folder paper and all. there was a green sticky note on the top, with a simple sentence in techno’s neat handwriting. 

‘don’t fuck it up.’

-*-*-

“say, tommy, other than jamie,” wilbur said, drumming his fingers on his knee. “who was your other least favourite foster parent?”

tommy glared at him. he did that a lot. “why? do you want to kill them too?”

wilbur could feel the pinpricks of annoyance at the base of his stomach, but ignored them, smiling kindly again. tommy was good at spotting lies, so he had to be careful. “i’m just curious, is that so bad?”

tommy didn’t answer.

wilbur looked at tommy’s homework, trying to puzzle together a way to get the information without tommy being suspicious. the kid was smart, he gave him that. wilbur ran a hand through his hair, letting it fall back in place after a moment. “what’s your favourite animal crossing character?” he asked.

tommy didn’t answer.

“are you... mad at me?” wilbur said slowly.

“they’re villagers. not characters,” tommy said.

“same thing, innit?

“no. they aren’t,”

ok, they were getting somewhere. maybe.

wilbur scratched out tommy’s wrong answer, replacing it with ‘chloroplasts’. “what’s your favourite subject so far?” he said, trying to keep his tone friendly. “i like history,”

tommy still didn’t speak.

his ghost friend was saying something, but wilbur couldn’t quite piece it together. tommy replied in a hushed whisper, and went back to scowling at the floor. the ghost boy shot wilbur a look, and waved. wilbur waved back, not wanting to be impolite.

“...cheri,” tommy muttered.

wilbur looked up. “sorry, what?”

“cheri,” tommy repeated. “cheri. she’s my favourite villager. you asked,”

wilbur grinned. “cool,” he doodled a small explosion on tommy’s paper. “i don’t really know animal crossing, honestly,”

tommy picked at his nails, but wilbur knew he was listening. 

“i’m more into online games,” wilbur continued. “do you know geoguessr?”

tommy shook his head.

“wanna play?”

“...whatever,” tommy grumbled, going to sit beside wilbur.

wilbur smiled, pulling out his laptop. “i’m very good at it, i’ll have you know,” he inputted his password, pulling open a new tab and typing geoguessr into the search bar. “wanna be on my team? you’ve traveled a lot, haven’t you?”

tommy nodded, watching his movements carefully.

they went into a lobby, and the game started.

the photo was of a lush green garden, with trees and roots all over the screen. there was a modern road and building on the other side, but there was still plenty of nature around.

“ooh,” wilbur exclaimed softly. “this is nice,”

“it’s a rainforest. boom, i solved it,” tommy said. 

“no, you have to know where it is. like, the city,”

tommy nodded slowly. “well it’s not here,”

“southern hemisphere?”

“yeah, i guess,”

“brazil, maybe?”

tommy shrugged.

wilbur puzzled over it, moving up and down the street. “oh, a sign. signs are good,” he went closer, but it was in a different language. “not in an english speaking country?”

“i guess,” tommy agreed. “maybe it’s in africa?”

“ooh, maybe. but that’s not african,” wilbur read the sign over. “maybe portuguese?”

tommy pointed at the top of the screen. “you have 30 seconds left,”

“ok, portuguese. portugal, uh... this one,” he clicked a random city in a blind panic, getting it very badly wrong. “oh. brazil,”

tommy snickered. “you were way off, big man,”

“oh, i’m not bitchboy anymore?”

“you’re still bitchboy. but i’m feeling nice,” tommy’s eyes closed. “i thought you said you were good at this game,”

wilbur shrugged. “well, i’m not perfect,” he shut down his computer, humming a slow song he didn’t know the words to.

“lame,” tommy said, but his words were slurring the tiniest bit.

oh.

oh. oh, that’s right. wilbur felt an idea start in the back of his mind, and he smiled. he poked tommy’s forehead. “are you tired, child?” he asked, amusement seeping into his tone. perfect.

tommy grunted in response, swatting wilbur’s hand away. that was an answer in and of itself.

wilbur laughed as tommy’s head dropped down. “do you want me to leave you to sleep? it is pretty late,”

“it’s only one, it’s not that late,” tommy whined.

wilbur placed tommy’s head on his shoulder, accepting his role as human pillow for the time being. “and you’re a child. it’s late,” he said, softening his voice. “just sleep,”

tommy didn’t move, but didn’t protest either.

wilbur saw his chance. “so, who was your least favourite foster parent?” he asked, keeping his tone quiet and calm.

“jamie,” tommy said as if it was the most obvious thing, but his voice was tired. “you already asked that,”

“no, besides her,”

tommy shrugged. “i dunno. this guy named tyler. he was a dick,” he rubbed his eyes, but didn’t move to sit upright. interesting. 

“was he the worst one?” wilbur hummed the song some more, letting tommy relax against him.

“no. he was just mean,” his words were starting to slur together more. “sometimes he wouldn’t let me eat,”

wilbur had to fight to keep from running and killing this tyler guy right then. “ok,” he placed a hand on tommy’s shoulder. “thank you for telling me,”

the only answer he got was a soft snore from tommy. the boy was finally asleep, and subconsciously pushed himself further into wilbur’s side. 

wilbur finally let his jaw clenched, and he reached to get the folder where he had hidden it in his notebook. he flipped through, finally finding the list of old houses tommy had lived in. the first one was someone named alex, the next one was jamie, and so on. wilbur scanned the list, until the saw it.

tyler rode. california. that was only eight hours by car, and three and a half hours by techno.

wonderful.

-*-*-

tyler rode was declared missing at three twenty-four in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 🦀JAMIE IS GONE🦀
> 
> anyways fuck this was fun to write, and i’m very happy with the result. also how bout that ranboo stream, huh? yeah. that was a trip.


	4. Park.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tommy investigates and then has a breakdown. what an amazing timeline of events, i hear you thinking.
> 
> tw: very heavily implied abuse and a funky panic attack at the end (spoiler warning, i’m very shit at writing big old emotional scenes so this might be absolute garbage, but i do not care.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI I HAVE THINGS TO SAY
> 
> first of all, holy shit thanks for the kudos and comments and everything, it’s very appreciated! like bro, y’all do be motivating me to update this and keep writing :D
> 
> number two, if i don’t reply to your comments just know it’s because i’m awkward and do not know how to respond, but i do read every comment, and i very much appreciate every single one of them. y’all are super epic and poggers.
> 
> that’s all i really had to say, i think. this chapter took me a hot fucking minute, cause i had something planned but then my adhd just said “ahaha no” so i changed it. i hope it’s tolerable? idk, i’m not a writer, we’ve been over this several times.
> 
> enjoy!

“wilbur,” phil said slowly, carefully. “where’s tommy’s file?”

wilbur swallowed his anxiety. “uh...” wow, very eloquent start, wilbur. well done. “what file? i don’t remember any file,”

“the file that lists all of tommy’s former parents, dietary restrictions, allergies, years in the system, situation, medical stuff, emergency contacts, and all the other information i need?” phil listed. “that file?”

“pffft, what?” wilbur laughed nervously. “i’ve never seen that file, i don’t even know what you’re talking about,”

“wilbur,”

“who’s wilbur?”

phil sighed, and rubbed his eyes. “will, i need that file. just tell me where it is,”

“i don’t know where it is!”

“wilbur,”

“ok, fine, i’m getting it,” wilbur raised his arms in a surrender, storming up to his room. 

and alas, there was the precious file. he was about to leave when he realized he was being stupid. he flitted through the file again, finding the pages he was looking for. he grabbed his notebook, and went to an empty page. he copied all the names down, scratching out jamie sporm.

he went back to phil, waving the file in the air. “here,” he threw it on the desk. “your file,”

phil opened the file, scanning through. when he reached the end, he sighed and shut it, placing it carefully in his drawer. “ok. ok, thank you,” he leaned back in his chair.

“cool. can i go? i just got candy and i have a feeling one of the two creatures i live with ate them already,” wilbur said, slowly backing out of the room.

“will!” phil called. “don’t let anyone see you next time. be careful,” 

how did he know?

wilbur nodded, finally getting to the kitchen. his candy was on the counter, and it was opened. tommy was on the couch, eating something.

“hey, wilbur,” he said. “thanks for the candy,”

wilbur sat on the couch, and playfully shoved tommy’s shoulder. “you owe me,” he said. “what are you watching?”

tommy shrugged. half of tommy’s sentences were shrugs. [small authors note: if you caught that reference, kudos, you are now my best friend.]

wilbur didn’t say anything when tommy leaned into his side.

“hey, wilbur,” tommy started. “are you... are you sure you didn’t kill jamie?”

“what do you mean?”

“i mean...” tommy fiddled with the hem of his shirt. “i dunno. you keep lying, and you’re acting all suspicious and shit,”

wilbur swallowed the lump in his throat. “no. i wouldn’t kill anyone,”

“unless they killed your family?”

“now you’re getting it,”

they sat in comfortable silence, watching whatever show was playing on netflix. tommy kept shifting though, and wilbur was getting the impression the boy had something to say. he didn’t push. he just waited for him to break.

“...wilbur?”

there it is.

“yeah, tommy?” wilbur shifted to look at tommy properly. 

the boy in question couldn’t make eye contact. “you...” he visibly gulped. “you’re lying,”

wilbur smiled, trying to play it off. “am i? how interesting,”

tommy scooted away, keeping his eyes glued to the television.

“are you scared of me, tommy?” wilbur guessed. he knew the answer would hurt, but he could brush it off. he always did.

tommy didn’t look at him when replied. “...no,”

lie.

-*-*-

“hey, techno,” tommy said, false confidence in his voice, “wanna chat,”

techno didn’t look up from his phone. “not really,” he said. “i’m busy watching twitter,”

“watching twitter?” tommy started. “never mind,” he sat in front of techno, successfully earning the... man things attention. “i wanna ask you some questions, big man,”

techno shut off his phone, lacing his fingers together as if to cage it in his grasp. “a’ight. shoot,”

tommy pulled out a list he had prepared.

techno opened his mouth as if to question it, but quickly shut it with a tight nod. “that’s not weird at all,” he muttered.

“ok, question one,” tommy read. “what’s the deal with your... uh...”

“ears?” techno finished. “yeah. i dunno, i’m just built different,”

tommy nodded, jotting it down. “next question. how are you and wilbur twins?”

“uh,” techno cut his eyes to the side. “we... have the same birthday? i’m confused,” 

“but you said you didn’t have a birthday when i first got here,” tommy said, pointing a finger in techno’s face. “explain yourself,”

techno rolled his eyes. “fine. i don’t have a birthday, and wilbur thought it was sad, so he decided that he would share his. and now we’re twins,” he crossed his arms. “are you done?”

tommy jotted that down, too. “no, i have one more question,”

“can you do this one quickly? i have some important scrolling to get to,”

“it’s a simple question,” tommy fixed techno with a hard stare. “did wilbur ever kill anyone?”

techno frowned. “depends. what do you think the answer is?”

“i think he has,” tommy said. “he’s being all suspicious and shit,”

“then, yeah,” techno shrugged, leaning back on the couch. “he has,”

oh.

“you’re just... telling me?” tommy scrunched up his nose. “just like that?”

“yes. yes i am,” techno pulled out his phone. “you get used to it. he won’t hurt us, though. i’ve lived with him long enough,” he chuckled and turned his phone to tommy. “look at this, some guy is getting cancelled again. i told you i had important scrolling to do,”

tommy nodded, but he hadn’t heard what techno had said. he was right, wilbur had killed jamie. but it had happened mere hours after they had talked about her, how did wilbur do it that fast? 

tommy was now playing detective. he never thought he would be investigating a murder at fourteen, but life is weird that way.

-*-*-

“you think wilbur did what?” ranboo asked in disbelief. “i’ve met wilbur, he doesn’t seem like he would do that,”

tommy took a swig of his coke. these chats at lunch were getting progressively more concerning. the teachers had to have been so horribly confused whenever they passed by. “yeah, well you don’t live with him,” he stated. “he keeps acting all suspicious, and he gets this creepy smile whenever i mention my old families,”

“and you’re sure you’re not overthinking this?”

tommy nodded. “i’m positive,”

“...ok,” ranboo said after a moment. “ok, i believe you,” he pulled out a pad of paper. “let’s get to work, shall we?”

they mapped out any evidence they had, though it wasn’t much. they knew wilbur was acting suspicious, and techno had straight up told them, but that was all they had. tommy tried to remember if he had seen anything, but he couldn’t think of anything.

“maybe look for blood? investigate the house,” ranboo suggested.

“i already have,” tubbo and tommy said at the same time.

“when did you get here?” tommy asked.

“like three minutes ago,” tubbo pointed to the list. “what does that say?”

“supposedly,”

“supposedly is a dumb word,”

ranboo coughed. “tommy, you good?” oh right. he couldn’t see tubbo. “or should i leave you to your...”

“no, i’m good,” tommy looked back at the list. “i could check the basement again,” 

ranboo nodded slowly. “i could help, if you want?” he looked down, embarrassed. “it’s cool if you don’t need my help though, it’s fine,”

“that would actually be super helpful,” tubbo said. “tell him he can help. also tell him i say hi,”

tommy swatted the boy away from his ear. “yeah, ranboo, you can help,” he said. “also my ghost friend says hi,”

“oh. he’s here?” ranboo said. he looked over his shoulder, probably expecting to see someone. when he didn’t his ears flattened a bit. “is he here?”

“yeah. just invisible,” tommy said as though it was the most natural thing in the world. “so you can come to phil’s place tonight, and we can investigate,”

ranboo’s face lit up. “awesome,” he said. he looked down. “awesome,”

-*-*-

investigating was not tommy’s forte. the search for minuscule clues was considerably difficult, especially considering tommy could only pick out small details when he didn’t mean to. the moment he was actively looking, all thoughts went out the window. 

“oh, i found blood,“ ranboo said, popping up from behind the couch. “come look at this,”

tommy peered behind the couch. sure enough, there were small dots of dried blood, painting the blue fabric of the couch a gross, dark red-brown. tommy tried not to gag.

“yeah, that’s blood,” tubbo said. “do you want me to write it down?”

“yeah,” tommy said, looking away quickly. “yeah, write it down,”

ranboo didn’t mention it when the notepad and pencil started to float and move on their own. “so we know... something happened here?” ranboo offered. 

“yeah,” tommy agreed halfheartedly. “but it could’ve been from an unrelated injury,”

“that’s... a very good point,” ranboo tapped his chin, scanning the floor again. they really weren’t getting anywhere, huh? “is wilbur... home?”

tommy shook his head. “he’s with his friends at the park, i think he said. i can’t remember,”

“what if we go to his room?” tubbo suggested gleefully. “he might have some murder tools there,”

tommy nodded his head thoughtfully. “mayhaps, tubbo. mayhaps,”

“why are you ‘mayhaps’ing?” ranboo asking, making air quotes around mayhaps. 

“what do you say we go through wilbur’s room, big man?” tommy said. “might have some murder tools or some shit,”

ranboo’s eyes bulged out of his head for a moment. “uh...” he looked over his shoulder, as if scared that wilbur would suddenly appear out of nowhere. “i’m not sure i’m comfy with that arrangement?”

“he can keep watch,” tubbo said, already floating his way up the stairs. “or you two can play cards while i investigate,”

“ranboo, why don’t you keep watch?” tommy repeated. “me and tubbo can search the room,”

ranboo let out a sigh of relief. “that would be good, yeah,”

he stood by the door and tommy ventured inside, tubbo floating though the wall beside him. the lights were off, and it was surprisingly messy. there were clothes on the floor, and the laundry basket was full, either with clean or dirty clothes, it was impossible to tell. papers were scattered on an old wooden desk, some were empty and some had words scribbled down and scratched out. 

the only part of the room that was really clean was wilbur’s bed, with light gray sheets and a dark purple bigger, puffier blanket. it was made meticulously, not a crease out of place. there was a giant blue stuffed sheep in the corner, slumped over and worn, clearly well loved. 

tommy eyed the stupid amounts of maps covering the wall above the bed, some were overlapping. “jesus, does he collect maps?” he muttered.

tubbo stuck his head through one of the maps. “there isn’t any compartment behind them,” he brought his head back out. “it’s just wall,”

tommy pulled open one of wilbur’s dresser drawers. “tubbo, what exactly would we be looking for?”

“uh, great question,” tubbo stuck his face through the ceiling, then into a different drawer. “maybe knives? a gun? a saw, some duct tape, rope? confetti canon gone wrong?”

“i’m sorry, what was that last one?”

tubbo hesitated. “confetti canon gone wrong?”

tommy nodded thoughtfully. “sounds plausible, i think,” he said. “is there anything in his closet?”

tubbo floated through the closet door, quickly peeking his head out. “i found a safe, if that’s good?” he offered. “or bad? i dunno, important,”

tommy rushed to the closet, throwing the door open. sure enough, a big black safe was tucked behind bundles of blankets and towels, thrown haphazardly on top of the box. “holy shit,” tommy muttered. “tubbo, can you look inside and see what’s there?”

tubbo saluted jokingly, sticking his face in. he didn’t talk for a long time. when he brought his head out, his eyes were wide and his mouth was pressed in a thin line. “first of all, what do you think was in there?”

“judging from your expression, it’s either murder weapons or sex toys,” tommy joked lightly.

tubbo didn’t laugh.

“...wait, was it sex toys?”

tubbo shook his head. “i...” he cleared his throat. “knives and duct tape,” his voice cracked. “and bleach, febreeze, and a tarp,”

tommy nodded slowly, his hands shaking a little. “anything, uh... anything else?”

tubbo didn’t speak for a while, twiddling his thumbs and looking at the ground. “should we tell phil?”

“no!” tommy shrieked. he cleared his throat, embarrassed. “no,” he said, much calmer. “no, he’ll... i’ll get thrown out, either for snooping or for discovering a family secret, one of the two,”

tubbo nodded dutifully. “i won’t say a word,”

“tubbo, two out of the four people in this house can’t even hear you. i’m not worried about that,”

there was a knock at the door. “guys, i think wilbur’s home, the door just opened,”

tommy had never left a room so fast in his life. he bounded down the stairs, skidding to a stop in front of... techno.

“uh...” techno said, shifting his eyes to the side. “hi?”

“hey, techno!” tommy said, his voice a little higher than usual. “what brings you here, big man?”

“i live here,”

“yep,” tommy coughed into his hand. “you do live here, good job on... that-“

“what do you want,” techno said, crossing his arms. 

“nothing!” tommy said, almost defensively. “nothing, i swear,”

“ok, then what are you hiding?”

“whaaat?” tommy squeaked. “me? hiding something? that’s just... so dumb,”

“tommy,”

“ok, fine, i was going though wilbur’s room!” tommy admitted. “i’m sorry, it was stupid, please don’t tell phil. i can pack my bags now, i can leave, i’m sorry-“

“woah, hey, kid,” techno put his mug on the counter, leaning down to put a hand on tommy’s shoulder. maybe it was how fast the action was, or how techno never emoted so tommy wasn’t sure to be scared, but the motion was too sudden.

and tommy flinched. hard.

techno retracted his hand, his eyes saucers. “oh,” he whispered. he put his hands down, probably making an effort not to scare tommy away.

tubbo brought a hand to his mouth. “ohhhhh shit,” he said. 

tommy was internally yelling at himself. his one rule is don’t react. don’t react to the contact. and he did just that. he had brought his arms up to protect himself, and he was frozen in place like a deer in headlights. (he didn’t notice ranboo slinking out the front door and ducking behind the window, patiently waiting until someone came out.) 

“tommy,” techno said calmly. “are you... good?”

tommy would have laughed if he wasn’t so goddamn scared. of course he wasn’t fucking good.

tubbo rested a hand on tommy’s shoulder, leaving a cold imprint of fake contact. “if it’s any help, i’m sure he isn’t going to, uh...” tubbo said. he thought for a moment. “nevermind,”

was tommy shaking? fuck. fuck, shit, oh god. he backed up, almost tripping over his feet. he scrambled up the stairs to the room he was in, ignoring techno calling after him. he ignored the front door opening, too.

he grabbed his bag, tossing all his old clothes and belongings inside, zipping it up tight. he scanned his room, ignoring ranboo and techno’s voices from the living room. could he jump from the window? no, that’s insane, he was on the second story. but one look from the window proved that he would at least survive, maybe uninjured if he was lucky.

a knock at the door. he was too late.

“hey,” techno said. “your friend wanted to say bye, but he wasn’t sure if you were in the right, uh... headspace to be spoken to. so,” he drummed his fingers on the doorframe. “sorry about that,”

tommy swallowed the words in his throat. (why are you apologizing? this was my fault, i did this. don’t apologize.)

“i shouldn’t have bothered you like that,” techno sounded... the same. “and sorry for scaring you,”

tommy dropped his head down, hugging his bag to his stomach. “it’s fine,” he said, his voice small. “i’m sorry,”

techno nodded awkwardly, going to back out of the room. “if you want to, uh...distract yourself, we can go and annoy wilbur and his friends,”

and that’s how tommy found himself in the front seat of techno’s car, in complete silence, driving to a park to embarrass tommy’s foster fathers weird kind of sons kind of twin brother at four pm on a friday.

techno didn’t put on any music, so tommy was thankful he had remembered his earbuds. he let the sounds of the world bowser theme entertain the corner of his brain that was constantly asking for sound. 

“hey, uh,” techno said awkwardly. “sorry about earlier. i didn’t know,”

“didn’t know what?” tommy asked. but he knew. he knew better than anyone. and now techno knew, and phil would know, and then wilbur, and they would send him back to fucking lisa.

techno sighed. “you... ya know what i’m talkin’ about, don’t make me say it,” his voice dropped in volume suddenly.

tommy sank in his seat. “it’s ok,” he assured him.

“no, it isn’t,”

“it’s really fine,” 

“dude, i-“

“i won’t bring it up again,” tommy said quickly, sensing the usual spiel of ‘oh, you have to tell an adult!’ he didn’t care for it. adults never did anything useful. “just don’t tell phil,”

techno huffed out of his nose. he sounded like an animal. “fine. i won’t tell phil,”

tommy blinked. “wait, you’re not even gonna try to convince me?”

“privacy is important. besides, i can tell you don’t want to stay here very long. what’s the point?”

tommy looked down. “fair enough,”

he didn’t know if he wanted to stay or not. this place was nice. it wasn’t home, it wasn’t a real family, but no one had actually done anything. (yet?) and phil was a good cook, which is a must. but on the other hand, he didn’t want to say ‘oh, yeah, i’m just some foster kid that lives with this guy who’s son is a murderer’, and he didn’t want anything to do with wilbur anymore. he didn’t want to have to deal with that.

“tommy, if anyone hurts you, just tell ‘em you know me,” techno said suddenly. “i’m terryfyin’ and i could absolutely punch them for ya,”

tommy snorted. “don’t you do school online?”

“and? i would gladly skip some classes if i get to beat up some little shit who messes with you,”

“oh,” tommy felt a warmth under his stomach, in the base of his spine. it curled up, resting happily on his heart. he would never admit it if you asked him, but he would be upset to leave techno behind. the guy was nice. and he could beat people up, which is a major bonus. 

they kept driving, the silence much more comfortable than before, with unsaid words hanging in the air.

‘i’m there for you.’

(i can let you in. i think i can let you in.)

-*-*-

“hey, wilbur!” tommy shouted, catching the man by surprise.

wilbur jumped a bit, whipping around with anger written on his face. when he saw it was only tommy, he relaxed. “jesus, tommy, don do that,” he breathed. “you almost gave me a heart attack!”

“weak,” techno said flatly. “hey, dream,”

a man with dark blond hair and muted green eyes raised his hand in a wave. he was sitting on the ground beside a soft looking boy with clean cut brown hair and thick white framed glasses.

the brown haired boy glared at techno. “what do you want?”

techno chuckled, but there was no humour. “nothing,” he said. “don’t try to pull something on me, george,”

the brunette (george?) rolled his eyes. “i wasn’t going to, idiot. i’m off duty,” he spat. “but the moment i’m on duty, i will hunt you down,”

“when are you ever on duty?” the blond boy joked. (dream, probably. dumb name.) “now stop being a jerk and let techno vibe with us,”

tommy scanned the small group. there was dream and george, and there were three other people present. one was a girl with bright pink hair, round wire framed glasses and a calm smile. the other two were boys, one was shorter than tommy with a big black and blue striped beanie, while the other wore a black baseball cap and had a business man smile. wilbur and techno looked at ease, and tommy felt so horribly out of place. he felt small and young, and he fucking hated it.

the girl with dyed pink hair smiled at tommy. “you must be the kid wilbur’s always talking about,” she said. “he thinks you’re funny,”

“i never said that!” wilbur cut in. 

the girl snickered. “sure you didn’t, will,” she looked back at tommy. “i’m niki,”

oh. OH. that niki. the niki from the note. the niki from the love note that wilbur wrote to a niki, and that niki was this niki.

tommy smiled.

wilbur must’ve known what he was thinking, and sent him a dangerous glare.

“i’m tommy,” tommy said, ignoring wilbur’s gaze.

“wait, you’re tommy?” niki asked. “are you the same tommy that jumped in front of those assholes that tried to beat up ranboo?”

“uh... yeah?”

niki smiled wide. “ranboo told me about you! he lives with me and my cousin, eret,”

oh. “eret like the guy with the sunglasses?” tommy guessed. eret couldn’t be that common of a name.

niki nodded.

“niki, stop hogging the child!” the boy in the beanie said. “i want to bother him too!” he held out a hand and smiled wide, his eyes bright. “i’m quackity,”

tommy didn’t take his hand. he didn’t want to be touched right now, not after... what happened.

the boy in the baseball cap took a large swig from a can of... some type of alcohol, probably. or a monster energy. “wilbur, why do you suddenly have another brother?” he drawled. tommy decided he didn’t like him all that much.

“he’s not my brother,” wilbur said.

“holy shit, did you kidnap this child?”

“no!”

the baseball cap guy laughed. “whatever you say, wilbur,” he looked to tommy, scanning the boy, as if picking out flaws or oddities. “the names schlatt. ghost hunter supreme,”

“you’re really not,” george piped up. 

“don’t judge our profession, gogy!” quackity yelled, tossing a clump of dirt at george, missing his face by at least an inch. “maybe you should worry about your own sham of a job,”

“at least i actually get paid!”

“you don’t even do anythin,” techno said. “wilbur, do you have a beverage?”

wilbur hummed, grabbing schlatt’s bag and tossing techno a pink monster. “that’s all we got. schlatt’s obsessed,”

“i am not obsessed, wilbur,” schlatt said. “take that back,”

“never,”

tommy was having trouble following the conversation, so he opted to stay quiet and look at his shoes. he needed new shoes, his were getting small. and they had holes in the sides and he could peel away the rubber if he wanted to. he didn’t want to, but he could’ve.

“-mmy!” wilbur shouted.

tommy jumped a bit, snapping back to reality, but not as fast as he liked. “sorry,” he said quickly. 

“i was just wondering why you’re here,”

“philosophically or generally?”

wilbur laughed, as did most of the group. george was clearly trying not to, but huffed out of his nose. 

tommy smiled. he could get used to this. “well, techno offered to take me to see you, so i thought i might as well see my second favourite random roommate,”

“second favourite?” wilbur asked.

“techno’s my favourite,”

“haha, suck it!” techno said triumphantly. “imagine not being the favourite, sounds cringe,”

“imagine being the favourite, sounds just as cringe,” wilbur retorted.

the two continued bickering, so tommy went back to his own head. he had homework, but he could get wilbur to do it later. phil said they were having pizza, so tommy was looking forward to going home. he trusted techno not to tell anyone what happened, but if wilbur found out it was all over. or maybe it wasn’t, tommy wasn’t sure.

but he sure as hell didn’t want to find out.

“holy shit, techno found one of my notebooks from seventh grade yesterday, and god i was such a sap,” wilbur said animatedly. “like, i was the bitch that wrote poetry in seventh grade,”

schlatt laughed. “dude, that’s so sad,” 

“you haven’t changed, like, at all,” dream said. “you still write music, don’t you?”

wilbur shrugged. “yeah, but it’s not that serious. i focusing on school at the moment,” he leaned back on his hands. “god, that notebook was so embarrassing,”

“why, cause of the love note you wrote?” tommy spoke without thinking. and that may have been a mistake, based on the look he got from wilbur right after.

“a love note?” quackity asked, his eyes glimmering with curiosity. "dish, wilbur, dish,"

"there wasn't any love note," wilbur said defensively. "right, tommy?l

well, the damage was already done. might as well dig the hole further, see how far he could go before he was wilbur's next victim.

"actually, it was very sappy," tommy said. "very seventh grade. and there were no commas, according to techno," he ignored the pit in his stomach. 

wilbur's eyes were fucking furious. he probably would have snapped tommy's neck if they weren't with people. “shut up, tommy,” he said, his voice low.

but everyone was laughing too hard to hear him. except tommy.

“dude, we need to see this,” schlatt said. “wilbur, do you have the notebook?”

“wait, holy shit, who was the letter to?” quackity asked. (god, tommy couldn’t get over how ridiculous that name was.)

george leaned back, a small smile on his face. “this would be such good blackmail material,”

“true!” dream said between wheezes. 

“don’t be shy, tell us who the letter was for,” niki teased, poking wilbur’s arm playfully.

wilbur laughed it off, but his eyes were still angry. “it doesn’t matter, does it?” he said. 

tommy wasn’t thinking. it was an accident. he had forgotten about his filter, how he was still in danger, how he had to watch what he said because if he didn’t he would get hurt. all of those thoughts went out the window as he said “i think it was niki,”

there was a series of ‘ooh’s and ‘aw’s, and niki laughed along with them. but wilbur was looking at tommy, boring through the boys skull with the most terrifying expression tommy had ever seen a human make. wilbur almost looked inhuman, his face struggling to keep from contorting with rage.

“tommy,” wilbur said, his voice falsely calm. no one else seemed to have heard him. “why don’t you go home,”

tommy felt his stomach drop. this was it, the breaking point. he was done for, and he would be going back to lisa. this house lasted almost a week, and even then tommy was upset to be leaving. it was strange. he stood up rigidly, speed walking to the parking lot. he didn’t catch techno hitting wilbur in the back of the head and dragging him to the car.

tommy curled up in the backseat, trying to steady his breathing. he barely registered his hands shaking, and the yelling from outside the car. he jumped when the front doors opened and techno and wilbur sat themselves down. wilbur was still radiating anger, and so was techno.

tommy was dead. he was absolutely going to die.

he wasn’t sure if he cared or not.

-*-*-

“what the fuck, tommy?!” wilbur shouted. “what the fuck was that?!”

tommy was looking down, sitting on the couch with his back straight and his hands shaking. he knew he fucked up, but if he told the truth (that it was a fucking accident, he hadn’t meant to say it.) wilbur wouldn’t have believed him. so he sat there and took it, like he normally did.

“i have half a mind to call phil and tell him to send you back right now!” wilbur threw his hands in the air. (hopefully he didn’t see tommy flinch slightly.) “seriously, what the fuck?”

“wilbur, calm down. it isn’t that big of a deal,” techno said.

wilbur growled, crossing his arms. “i told you not to fucking tell anyone, kid. what the fuck,”

“i’m sorry,” tommy blurted without thinking. “it was a mistake, i didn’t mean to say it,”

“well you did!” wilbur yelled, exasperated. “god, why can you never keep your fucking mouth shut?” (i’m fucking trying, wilbur, i’m trying.)

“wilbur, stop yelling at him,” techno said, placing a hand on his twins shoulder. “look at him, he’s fuckin terrified,”

tommy wasn’t terrified. he wasn’t. 

(he was.)

wilbur rolled his eyes. “oh, please,”

“he’s shakin, wilbur!”

wait, was tommy shaking? he hadn’t realized. why was he shaking? he wasn’t scared.

he needed to run.

wilbur sighed, hesitantly giving up his anger and leaning down. he reached a hand forward to try and place it on tommy’s shoulder, but he didn’t get that far.

tommy’s autopilot kicked in. shield the face, and wait for impact. his arms snapped into an X position in front of his head, and he scrambled backwards.

silence.

oh. tommy realized what he had just done. he looked up slowly, cautiously. wilbur’s eyes were wide and his expression was unreadable, and techno was at alert, looking just about ready to dropkick wilbur into the sun.

wilbur knew. fuck, wilbur knew.

tommy stood up quickly, running back to his room. he locked the door, and hid in the closet, trying to even out his breathing. he pretended not to hear the knocking on the door and voices telling him that it was ok, and that they just wanted to talk. yeah, because wilbur was so keen on talking earlier.

tommy slid down the wall and crouched into a small ball. he felt like a kid again, trapped in the closet, unable to breathe until someone opened the door. he couldn’t breathe, fuck.

he threw the door open, opting instead to sit on his bed, with his soft blankets wrapped around his shoulder and holding himself until he fell asleep.

wait, these blankets weren’t his. he didn’t live here, none of this was his.

“tommy, can you please open the door?” wilbur pleaded, his voice muffled by the door. “i’m sorry, ok? i just need to make sure you’re ok,”

“phil’s gonna kill you,” techno said.

“i know that!” wilbur hissed loud enough for tommy to hear. “tommy, i’m going to get techno to kick the door down unless you unlock it,”

“i won’t kick down the door,”

“just work with me here, man,”

“you’re terrible at this,”

“as if you could do any better, pig boy?”

“i could. i’m the favourite,”

“now is not the time!”

tommy heard the front door open, and a third voice joined the group.

phil was home.

tommy was really starting to think that his jumping out of the window escape route would be better than this. but he couldn’t get his body to move, so he was stuck. stuck between a murderer, a monster, and phil, with only a door and a blanket to protect him. he was so royally screwed, and all because he just had to let his stupid mouth think for itself for once.

“what’s going on?” phil’s voice asked. “did i miss something?”

“tommy’s locked himself in his room, and i think he’s having a panic attack?” wilbur said, his voice much more quiet than before. “and i think it might be my fault,”

“it is your fault,” techno piped up. “it is entirely your fault,”

“are you sure he’s in there?” phil asked.

“where else would he be?” wilbur said, the sarcasm failing to hide the genuine worry in the edge of his voice.

another knock on the door. softer and slower than the others. too loud, everything was too loud, it shouldn’t have been this loud. tommy couldn’t think. he needed his music, but he had left his phone downstairs on the couch. fuck.

“tommy?” phil said, his voice soft. loud, loud, loud. “can we come in?”

tommy’s head was buzzing. he couldn’t think anything other than ‘run, hide, escape’.

phil said something, and there was the shuffling of footsteps and the sound of metal. tommy instinctively covered his ears. loud. too loud. he needed the sun to be down, he needed his music. he needed to fucking run. he couldn’t breathe, and the walls were closing in. just like the closet. tommy tucked his face in his knees, curling up tighter than before.

he barely registered a hand lightly resting on his arm, and even if he did he wasn’t sure if he would have let it stay there. he heard muddled voices, but his thoughts were too loud to piece any of the words together. he sat like that for a while, crunched into a ball, holding his ears and hiding his face, trying desperately to get back into his normal state, but nothing worked. he needed to calm down, but wasn’t sure what he needed to ducking do that.

music.

he could hear his music. his music with the higher electronic notes and the lower trombones, the swing beat. he could hear it, and he let it grab his thoughts and pull them out of the mud. he felt his brain clear a bit, and it didn’t seem as loud.

“-athe, ok?” phil’s voice broke through next. “i need you to breathe normal, i don’t want you passing out,” he sounded worried, almost.

tommy slid backwards, away from the source of the voice. he kept his head down. he couldn’t be near people right now. he just fucking couldn’t. 

“oh, he’s alive,” techno acknowledged.

“i told you the music would work,” wilbur.

“tommy, can you try to regulate your breathing?” phil said. tommy anchored himself to the mans voice, letting the music occupy his brain while he clung desperately to phil’s words. “techno, what the fuck do i do?”

“i don’t know!” techno said, “just keep talking, i guess? he seems to be... better than before?”

tommy let out a shuddering breath he hadn’t known he had been holding, and wrapped his arms around his legs.

phil sighed. “i don’t think this is working,” he muttered. “will, can you knock him out?”

oh.

wilbur spluttered for words. “i- what? no! no, that’ll just make it worse!”

“do you have a better idea, genius?” techno asked sarcastically.

“i...” wilbur let out a hushed breath, and tommy felt the bed dipping as he sat down. “tommy, can you even hear us?”

tommy nodded slowly, finally feeling as though he could move again.

“see? there’s no point,” wilbur conceded. he placed a light hand on tommy’s shoulder. why was everyone always doing that? was that a common thing?

tommy took a deep breath, and pushed wilbur’s hand away. “get out,” he managed to say. his voice sounded watery. he was just so tired.

“are you... ok?” phil asked hesitantly.

“do i look like i’m ok, phil?” tommy spat. “just leave,”

and they did. tommy was back to being alone. like he always was. he was always alone, so it shouldn’t have felt any different. it shouldn’t have felt like his chest was constricting and there shouldn’t have been a stinging behind his eyes. he shouldn’t have wanted them to come back, to hug him, to say it was ok.

but he did.

he curled up tighter, giving himself a sad facsimile of a hug. he grabbed his pillow, hugging it close, imprinting the fake touch onto his already raw skin. he didn’t let himself cry, but he let himself have this. 

just this once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter has been brought to you by raid shadow le-


	5. Red.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tommy let's himself crack open and then witnesses something traumatic. again.
> 
> trigger warnings:  
> \- conversations about abuse  
> \- gore and blood and shit  
> stay safe my beloveds <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOT ME ACCIDENTALLY MAKING THIS CHAPTER OVER 10000 WORDS LONG LMAO IM SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG  
> ANYWAYS HI IM BACK AND I HAVE CONTENT  
> this was very fun to write. i hope you cry/suffer.
> 
> also happy birthday philza minecraft you are so epic

tommy stumbled down the stairs. it was almost two am, but god he was just so hungry. he had skipped school, and phil actually let him. he hadn’t eaten all day, despite phil pretty much ordering him to. tommy wasn’t all that hungry, at least he didn’t think so. he hadn’t felt hungry until now, so he was going to make some popcorn, watch brooklyn 99, and then pass out on the couch.

techno and wilbur were often awake until way too late, and tommy prayed they weren’t in the kitchen or living room already. because they would want to talk about what happened, and he’d have to tell them, and then they’d tell phil, he’d be sent back, and the cycle would start all over again.  
just like it always did.

tommy was so, so tired.

he was just starting to punch the numbers into the microwave to make his popcorn when he heard footsteps. soft padded footsteps, almost completely silent if it weren’t for the silence of the house.

wilbur.

“oh,” wilbur said. “uh... hi,”

tommy didn’t answer, almost literally punching the start button and watching the bag in the microwave started to spin.

wilbur didn’t say anything either. he just opened the pantry and grabbed a giant bag of raisins. god, did this fucker have no taste?

spinning, spinning...

ok, fuck this.

“why are you awake?” tommy asked. “are you going to kill more people? should i leave so you can get on with it?”

wilbur blinked. “uh... no,” he said, sitting on the counter, almost hitting his head on the ceiling. “i just heard you were awake, wanted to make sure you weren’t running away on us,”

tommy didn’t answer. spinning, spinning...

“are you not ready to talk?”

spinning.

and it was done. tommy took out the bag, ripping it open. he had forgotten to get a bowl, so he settled to just eat it from the bag. he sat on the couch, turning on the tv and scrolling through his Continue Watching section to find brooklyn 99.

“can i watch with you?” wilbur asked, his voice soft.

tommy didn’t care. so he let him.  
he pressed play.

“hey, captain” jake peralta’s familiar voice blared, and tommy rushed to turn down the volume. “i finished my report on the finley murder,”

wilbur was looking at him. “tommy,” he whispered. “we’re going to have to talk eventually,”

tommy didn’t answer. if he waited long enough, wilbur might leave.

“besides, you still have a month of my free service. anything you need me to do?”

tommy didn’t look at the man as he spoke. “i have three assignments for you to do,” tommy said, keeping his voice flat and unfeeling. just like techno. “and i need you to check what i missed on google classroom,”

wilbur smiled, but it wasn’t genuine. more sad, than anything. “c’mon, what about the dreadful nickname you gave me?” at least he was trying.

tommy didn’t speak.

the brooklyn 99 theme song was so achingly familiar. it reminded him of watching the show over the years, going from house to house, struggling to stay with a family for more than a month. but this show was always predictable. he knew every word of every episode, and could probably recite it from memory if you asked him to. no one had ever asked him to. he didn’t mind.

in a different situation, he would have watched Up, but this was a time that needed something normal. familiar. something that wouldn’t make him too happy or too sad.

wilbur went up the stairs, and soon returned with tommy’s unfinished assignments. he situated himself on the floor, getting to work. he didn’t complain or speak at all, letting tommy ease into the normalcy of his show.

“tommy, can we please talk?” wilbur said suddenly, his voice quiet.

tommy knew this was coming. “talk about what?”

“you know already,”

tommy didn’t bother replying.

“i’m worried about you, ok? we both know what you were thinking when... y’know,” wilbur scratched something out on the paper in his lap. “i just wanted to talk to you about it,”

“well, i don’t want to talk about it,” tommy snapped.

silence.

tommy went back to his show, wilbur went back to tommy’s homework. neither of them spoke until after tommy finished two episodes.

“i’m assuming you’re upset with us?” wilbur asked.

well, no fucking shit, wilbur.

tommy tossed a piece of popcorn into his mouth before replying with a simple “ok,”

wilbur sighed. “toms, i just want to talk,”

“oh, is that what you tell the people you murder?”

“no!” wilbur sounded like he wanted to scream. “and i don’t fucking kill peo-“

“drop it,” tommy cut him off. “i know. ok? techno told me, i found your murder shit in your room, you don’t have to bullshit me anymore,”

wilbur blinked. and then he raised an eyebrow. “you went through my room?”

shit.

“that... uh-“

“whatever, i don’t care. techno does that all the time,” wilbur waved it off. “but seriously, i just want to talk to you,” expert level topic change.

“about what?”

“about... yesterday,”

a silence fell over the room. tommy fidgeted with the battery cover of the remote, sliding it on and off, over and over. he really didn’t want to talk about yesterday, for presumably obvious reason. he didn’t want wilbur to know. he didn’t want wilbur to kill anyone else.

(lie. maybe. there were some people tommy wished were dead.)

“...why do you care?” tommy had meant to sound stronger when he said that, but it came out more small and vulnerable.

wilbur looked at the boy in front of him. “because i do,” he answered simply.

“you shouldn’t have to. i barely know you,”

“so what? i still care,” wilbur scooted the slightest bit closer to tommy. “i just want to help you,”

“stop pitying me,” tommy spat. he knew pity when he saw it. he knew it when he looked in the eyes of people who saw bruises on his face, and saw how empty his eyes were. he could see it, and he hated it with every fibre of his being.

wilbur scoffed. “i’m not pitying you, toms,” where did the nickname come from? “i’m worried about you,”

“don’t be,” tommy said. “i can deal with this myself,”

“you shouldn’t have to,”

(i don’t want to. i want to tell you everything, but you scare me, wilbur.)

tommy tossed more popcorn in his mouth. “can we just watch the show?” he asked. he sounded so much younger than he was. (he was just a fucking kid.)

wilbur didn’t ask any more questions after that.

tommy secretly wished that he did.

-*-*-

“he’s alive!” techno said as tommy entered the kitchen. it was the first time in a couple days he’d left his room during the day, and techno (and phil.) seemed happy to see him.

tommy sat himself down on one of the rickety white chairs and crossed his arms on the table. “yeah, it’s a miracle,” he quipped. he sat down at the island, folding his elbows on the smooth surface, speckled with blacks and brows and almost unnoticeable fleck of gold. “sorry, i woke up late,”

phil shrugged, taking a large sip of his mug of coffee. or it was alcohol. impossible o tell with phil, really. “no need to apologize, mate,” he said. “wilbur once woke up at eight pm, y’know,”

“having a sense of the passing of time is cringe,” techno said. “i prefer to just not sleep, not have a watch, and fly into the night,”

“you can’t fly, techno,” phil pointed out.

“i can do whatever i please,”

“that’s not how it works,”

“let me live, old man,”

phil sighed, rolling his eyes fondly. “i’m really not that old,” he looked at tommy. “did you sleep ok?”

tommy hadn’t actually slept. but they didn’t need to know that. he nodded, looking down at the table, letting the patterns go hazy in his eyes.

they sat in relatively awkward silence, the whistling of the wind against the windows the only sound to break it. tommy really wished he had his earbuds. he really needed to start carrying them around everywhere, didn't he? he found himself wishing he had them too often, might as well have them at all times, in case of emergencies. 

would this be considered an emergency? he thought so. awkward silences were always an emergency. that's always how the worst conversations started. awkward silence, then the doctor comes in, and boom his mother is dead. awkward silence when he gets home, and boom his father is bankrupt and he's being sent into foster care. the worst things always started with silence. so tommy tried to get rid of the silence, to push it out and away, stopping it from crushing his skull and melting his bones. because silence can absolutely do those things.

"techno, you snore," he piped up suddenly. he was reaching for something to say, but at least he could prolong the inevitable. "like, really loud,"

"these accusations are baseless," techno said. he seemed to get tommy's thought process.

phil nodded. "no, tommy's right. you snore like a monster,"

"racist," techno replied, no emotion on his face or his voice.

phil spluttered for anything to say, starting sentences then promptly giving up. he finally just shut his mouth, fixed techno with a hard stare, and took a swig of his coffee. he didn't break eye contact with techno the entire time.

tommy watched all this go down, and he coughed out a short laugh every couple seconds. when phil lowered his mug and let out an overexaggerated exhale, tommy lost his shit. he was practically wheezing, head thrown back and everything. he pretended to wipe his eyes, and looked back at the two men. "phil, you are so funny," he said. "like, so funny,"

phil smiled. "thank you, child,"

"i'm not a child,"

"you're pretty much a child. you aren't eighteen,"

"i'm a big man! the biggest man!"

"minor,"

"that doesn't mean i'm a child!"

"you're, like, fourteen,"

"i'm a big man, biggest man to ever walk this earth,"

"what the fuck did i just walk in on?" wilbur's voice interrupted. he was standing at the bottom of the stairs, his eyes flitting between the three hyperactive idiots in the kitchen. "sorry, did i interrupt something?" he said, his tone bordering on playful despite it's obvious confusion.

techno shrugged. "not really. just a very entertaining debate,"

"i see," wilbur sat down beside tommy, resting his chin on the counter. "good evening, family,"

“it’s nine pm,” techno pointed out.

"hi, will," phil said. "do you want anything? you missed dinner,"

(they hadn't offered tommy dinner. he didn't care.)

(yes he did.)

(shut up.)

wilbur hummed thoughtfully. "do we have any take-out?" he asked pathetically.

phil opened the fridge, quickly scanning it up and down before turning back to wilbur and shaking his head. "anything else you might want?"

"i dunno. food?"

"that can be arranged," phiol nodded. he then turned to face tommy, his gaze sharp. "do you want anything to eat? i forgot to ask, sorry,"

tommy shook his head. "i'm not hungry, don't worry," (i'm starving.) "besides, wouldn't want you wasting food on me, i don't deserve it," he laughed awkwardly, and then he realized what he had just said. and he registered the way they were all staring at him, looks of sympathy and pity and... techno's usual expression. mans was impossible to read. tommy quickly cleared his throat. "i didn't mean that, sorry. i just meant, like-"

"no, it's ok," phil said, quickly picking up on tommy's sudden panic. "i get what you're saying,"

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck

"techno and wilbur don't like eating in front of people either,"

oh.

OH.

phil thought tommy was nervous about eating in front of people. phil didn't know tommy wasn't lying. phil didn't know. the realization calmed tommy's heart a bit, but there was still a voice at the back of his head trying to convince him to get up and run back to his room, and he was so tempted to listen and retreat to his warm blankets and beanbag chair. but he didn't. because tommy may have been young (not a child.) but he wasn't a fucking pussy. so he stayed put.

wilbur closed his eyes slowly. "tommy, can you stop your tapping?" he whined. "it's getting very hard to ignore,"

tapping...?

techno pointed down to tommy's leg. tommy looked down to see his toe tapping incessantly on the leg of the chair, and it was pretty loud. he ignored his face turning red and tucked his foot under himself, the room suddenly going quiet again. he squirmed uncomfortably. he felt like phil was staring at him, but it would be weird if he checked. would it be weird? probably. he kept looking down.

they sat in silence again, the wind was still howling outside. tommy hated storms with a passion, and he hated silence more. so this was just so much fun for him. he picked at the skin around his nails, biting and peeling the skin off his bottom lip. he felt as though everyone was staring at him, but he was too scared to actually check, so he simply sat there and squirmed.

(the walls have eyes.)

(tommy, what the fuck?)

phil suddenly cleared his throat, making tommy's head snap up in alert. "well, i'm off to bed," phil said, stretching his arms behind him and down, making his chest puff out like a bird. "if any of you need anything, just knock on my door. you too, tommy,"

tommy nodded as techno and wilbur said lazy 'goodnight's. tommy stood up, mumbling a quick "i'm going to my room," before scurrying away, shutting his door behind him. 

he sat on his bed, curling up around his pillow. he scanned his room, as he often did, and spotted the usual. bean bag chair, checkered blankets, untouched bags of clothes, his bright red bag, henry, and a box with a golden ribbon tied in a sloppy bow.  
wait.

a box?

that wasn't his. he never had any boxes or anything, he just had his bag and his pockets. where would the box come from? wilbur? no, wilbur's a dick. techno never left the house. so... phil? while he was thinking, he didn't notice tubbo phasing through the walls and hovering right beside his ear.

"hey," the ghost whispered.

tommy screeched, flailing backwards and almost falling off his bed. when tubbo started laughing, he glared. "you bitch, i could have died!"

"oh, you would have been fine," tubbo dismissed tommy's words with a wave of his hand. "whatcha doing?"

"well, i was trying to figure out who put that box in my room," tommy nodded towards the box. "you have any theories, small t?"

""well, no, i- wait, why am i small t?"

"because you're short, man,"

"not my fault i died when i was twelve,"

"just stay alive. not that hard, mate,"  
tubbo rolled his eyes and pushed tommy's shoulder, trying and failing to knock the (significantly taller) boy to his side. "doesn't matter," tubbo muttered. "but i don't know where the box came from. unless it's from phil,"

“that's what i thought, too," tommy agreed, nodding as if in thought. it was probably something dumb, so he went to open it. it was just... a cube. a cube with buttons on one side, a switch on the other, there were some gear looking things on another and a track pad thing on another. tommy examined it carefully, twisting it in his hands. "tubbo, do you know what this is supposed to be? and, uh... why?"

tubbo peeked over tommy's shoulder, looking at the Cube Thing. "i think that's a fidget thingy. ranboo has one," he said. "y'know how he's always fiddling with the thing under the table? it's one of those,"

"huh," tommy said. he pushed one of the buttons. "but why do i have one?"

"i don't know," tubbo said, almost defensive. "does it really matter? it's a gift, might as well keep it, yeah?"

 _that's stupid, tubbo,_ tommy's brain said. "yeah, that's true," tommy's mouth said. so either he was being really dumb, or he was being paranoid. he wasn't sure which, and he honestly could not bring himself to care after seeing tubbo's smile. "what's that smile for? what are you planning?"

tubbo tilted his head to the side. "i don't know what you're talking about," he said, tone bordering on mischievous. "tommy, can i hug you?" the tone immediately changed to be sincere.

ok, new topic, sounds good. "what?" tommy asked, ignoring the voice in the back of his head that said you're stalling, stop stalling. "where did that come from?"

tubbo shrugged.

tommy looked down. "a hug is ok, i guess," (more than ok. please hug me, i'm very upset.)

tubbo wrapped his arms tommy's neck. he was suprisingly solid, considering... y'know. ghost. but he was still light and cold, no heat radiating from his body at all. tommy almost shivered from the cold, but he managed to keep it down and wrap his arms around tubbo as well. they sat there for a while, and tubbo barely moved the whole time. tommy learned some things. 1; tubbo is a very good hugger despite being cold as balls, and 2; tubbo apparently just Did Not Breathe. like, he simply Did Not. it was very unsettling, but tommy didn't mention it.

there was a soft knock on the door, and phil's voice soon came through, muffled by... the door. "tommy, can i come in?" the person behind the door asked. he sounded safe, so tommy let go of tubbo to go and open the door. tommy sat down on his bed again, tubbo leaning on his head as though he was a table. phil stood in the doorway, as if he was asking to come in.

"i think he wants to talk to you about your little freak out," tubbo whispered.

phil chuckled tightly. "you're a perceptive kid," he said.

tubbo scrunched up his eyebrows. "wait. he can hear me?"

tommy shrugged.

phil sat down beside tommy, not close enough to be touching but close enough to reach out and grab the boy if he needed to. "yes, i can hear you," he said matter of factly. "i can see all ghosts, even if no one else can. that's how i meet a shocking amount of people," he looked at tubbo. "wait, i recognize you," he said.

tubbo looked to tommy for an idea of what to say, but all he got was a confused look and a slight shrug. "...ok," tubbo said.

phil shrugged it off. "it's no matter. tommy, i think you know why i'm here,"

oh boy. the 'please open up, i'm trying my best' thing. tommy's most favourite thing in the world. (it wasn't.) he mentally prepared himself, letting out a sigh. "fine. let's fucking chat," he said.

tubbo looked through the window for a split second. "do you want me to go, or...?"

"you can stay," tomy said quickly. he would never admit it, not in a million billion years, but tubbo made him feel safer in any situation. sure, call him clingy, but he was honestly scared of being separated from the ghost. "you can stay," he repeated, softer this time.

tubbo nodded dutifully, taking his place on tommy's side and taking his hand. tommy pretended not to notice tubbo smiling as he squeezed the ghost boys hand tighter.

phil let out a hushed breath of air, clasping his hands together, his elbows resting on his knees. "tommy, i know you don't want to talk about it,"

"how'd you figure that one out, genius?"

"so i'm not going to force you to talk about it. we don't have to talk if you don't want to,"

tommy blinked. what? parents didn't do that. this wasn't how these conversations were supposed to go. he was supposed to be pressured, shouted at, chastised, the works. but phil just sat there, not doing any of that. nothing. not even a "please talk to me" or anything.

"...ok," he said. he sounded quiet, and he was really trying not to let his surprise show through.

tubbos hand rubbed a line down the back of his own.

"though i do want to talk," phil continued cautiously.

oh boy here we go. "about what?" tommy asked, his voice sharp with annoyance and defiance.

phil shrugged loosely. "anything you want,"

...oh.

(anything i want. i can talk about anything i want. i'm not allowed to do that. what the fuck?)

tommy opened his mouth, trying to say something, but nothing came. no words were in his throat, and his mind was almost completely blank from the sheer amount of confusion that was cycling though it. he felt like he should be asking why, but he couldn't. he wasn't sure if he wanted to. he just sat there, holding tubbo's hand and fidgeting with the hem of his shirt.

"do you want me to start talking so you don't have to?" phil guessed after what seemed like forever.

tommy nodded, pressing his lips together.

"ok," phil said. he tapped his chin lightly. "did any of your families ever have... pets or something?" he sounded unsure, like he was trying not to step on a nerve.

tommy thought for a moment. houses had dogs sometimes, but there was almost never anthing intereting. "i think one of my old houses had an actual shark," he remembered suddenly. "her name was learia, i think. a small shark in one of those fish tank walls?"

phil laughed. "that's so extra!" he said. "why a shark?"

"i don't know, fashion?" tommy smiled. this was actually helping, which was slightly surprising. "who would even want a pet shark,"

"wilbur would want one," phil siad, leaning back on his elbows so he was looking at the ceiling. "dude loves sharks. carried around a giant stuffed one when he was younger. back when he was, like, eight? i was seventeen at the time, if i'm remembering correctly,"

"i thought you were their dad,"

phil nodded. "yeah, that's not entirely true. we're more like brothers, in all honesty. i ran away when i was around twelve? maybe thirteen, i can't remember. and i found this abandoned house, where i found will. we fixed it up, though," he smiled a little. "i kind of raised him, since he was so young,"

"you said this house was family property," tommy raised an eyebrow. how many lies had he been told?

phil shrugged. "well, i wasn't really lying. we're pretty much family, and it's our property. family property,"

"that's not how it works,"

"says who?"

"society,"

"tommy, you live with a cryptid, a ghost, a medium, and wilbur. you think we give a shit about society?"

"he's got you there," tubbo piped up.

tommy was too busy reeling to reply, because; cryptid? he wasn't sure what exactly a cryptid was, but he remembered doing a buzzfeed quiz some years back where there was something to do with bigfoot and mothman, or something like that. (his result was wendigo, which seemed a tad insensitive, but he didn't dwell on it.) but he lived with one of those? those weird pop culture things that weren't fucking real? he didn't remember seeing any bigfoots or mothmans or water... monster things anywhere. but he just lived with a cryptid?

phil laughed at his expression. "oh, you should see your face, you look so confused," he said through chuckles. "did you seriously never hear about techno before?"

what the fuck.

"he's like a legend outside of town. you may have heard of him; the blade?"

ok, tommy should have saved his what the fuck for later because What The Fuck.

like... the blade? the blade that was literally just a fucking legend? the blade that Didn't Fucking Exist? that one? techno was that blade? wow. that was... huh. ok.

tommy was having trouble putting his thought into coherent sentences, so he settled to just stare at phil until he explained.

phil seemed to catch on, and cleared his throat. "you know in other cities and online? the blade is like this big scary cryptid thing that goes around stabbing shit for fun. well that's techno," he looked at tommy with a slight tilt of his head. "i can't believe it took you this long to figure it out. we don't exactly try to hide it. well, that's not entirely true. we don't let people come over most of the time, because they could call the exterminators, and they would take techno to their little hound for cryptids. i'm suprised they haven't found us, honestly. we're just kinda... right there,"

ok, tommy was officially very confused. you know when you zone out in class and you come back and they're talking about something entirely different, and you just have to follow along despite missing so much necessary information? that's how he felt. looking back on it, some things seemed like they should have been obvious. but also they... weren't? tommy wasn't sure.

"...what the fuck," he muttered.

tubbo laughed. “did you seriously not know? even i knew, it doesn’t take a genius to piece it together,” he said. (somehow he had ended up with his head on tommy shoulder, but tommy didn’t mind.)

tommy shrugged. tubbo whined in protest from the sudden movement.  
phil chuckled. “it’s ok,” he said. he moved as if he was going to pat tommy’s shoulder, but caught himself quickly, letting his hand fall back to the checkered sheets. “is there anything else you wanted to talk about?”

tommy hummed. “not really,” he admitted. “i’ve never really... i dunno,” (i’ve never really done this before. what do you want me to talk about?)

phil nodded as if he understood. “ok, new topic. what’s your favourite video game?” he said. he sounded calm, and tommy let the vibe rub off on him. just a little.

“ooh! i like those shooty games,” tubbo interjected. “they’re very fun. i haven’t been able to play them, though. because i’m dead,”

“i like minecraft,” tommy said, more to tubbo than phil, but both of them seemed to be listening. “and animal crossing. they help me relax, even though they also piss me off to no end,”

phil scratches his chin. old man. “i’ve heard of animal crossing. never played it, though. what’s it even about?”

tommy cocked his head to the side. he was being asked to talk about something he enjoyed? no one ever did that. not even the good houses, with nice parents and tolerable kids. “it’s hard to explain,” he said.

“ooh, sounds fun,” phil replied with a grin.

tommy nodded slowly, assessing phil’s expression for any sarcasm. upon finding none, he started to explain. “well, it’s, like, uh... so you show up in some new area, either a town or an island depends on the game, and you basically get control over the way the town looks and everything. and there’s all these different villagers you can get, and they all have different names and personalities. i think there over three hundred of them, at least? oh, and...”

and so tommy just kept talking. and not once did phil do the little sigh when people got annoyed with you, and not once had he stopped listening. he occasionally interjected with questions, and laughed when tommy went on tangents about the horrible animal crossing economy. tubbo would pipe up with an occasional ‘oh, that’s new. they must’ve added it after i died’, but he listened attentively. and when tommy had started to yell about how shit of a villager tabby was, they laughed. and their eyes had no annoyance or malice. not even a little.

and tommy was properly happy. for the first time in a while. he was happy to just be there and talk to people about his interests, to rant and ramble as much as he damn well pleased with nobody telling him he was too much. because tommy was always too much.

maybe right now he was enough.

“sorry, i’m talking a lot,” he said suddenly, interrupting himself. “i just really fucking hate tabby,”

“she sounds like a nightmare,” phil agreed. “and from the picture you showed me she’s just as fucking hideous and you described her,”

“she’s a menace, phil!”

phil hummed. “not a fan of the tabster,”

“tabby is a bitch!” tubbo said. it was impossible to tell if his enthusiasm was fake or not. “fuck tabby!”

“all my homies hate tabby,” phil finished.

tommy groaned. “she’s been living at my island for four months, phil. four months! people say to be patient and she’ll leave but fuck i just want her gone,”

“when are they adding the animal crossing murder dlc,” phil joked. “abolish tabby and the government,”

tommy nodded. “agreed, phil, i agree so much,” he said. “god, tabby reminds me of the daughter of one of my old foster parents,”

(fuck. no. backtrack backtrack backtrack.)

“like, she was always in my way and hogged the bathroom all the time, and she would always be singing but it was just so bad, phil. she was horrible!”

(tommy shut the fuck up. you’re going too far.)

“god, and her dad was just as bad,”

(NO NO NO NO NO.)

“he...” he finally caught himself, almost literally slapping a hand over his mouth to shut himself up. “nevermind,”

silence. oh boy.

“...do you want to talk about him?” phil asked softly, not a hint of impatience or curiosity in his voice. just... concern? maybe?

tommy shook his head.

“you really need to stop moving,” tubbo said. he was still laying his head on tommy’s shoulder, and tommy would be lying if he said the action didn’t calm him down a little.

phil finally just lied down, crossing his arms behind his head. “...do you want to decorate your room, tommy?” he asked. “it’s still a bit dull in here,”

tommy shrugged.

“ok, different topic. what’s your favourite movie,”

“up,” tommy answered easily. “it’s the best movie ever made,”

“god, wilbur’s gonna give you a run for your money on that one. he hates that movie. traumatized him, he says,”

“the traumas the best part!”

phil laughed, making tommy’s chest swell with something like pride.

“god, i just love that movie,” tommy said. “wasn’t really allowed to watch it in the group home, though,” (because lisa hated it, and she would do some fucked shit. the movie made him cry, and she didn’t like that.)

“do you want to watch it tomorrow night?” phil asked. “will would do it if you wanted to. we can have a movie night,”

tommy smiled. that sounded nice. really nice, actually. “yeah, whatever,” he said. he was going for more flippant and sarcastic, but his words were soft.

phil nodded. “alright. do you like popcorn?”

“obviously,”

“as you should. ok, i’ll have to go shopping tomorrow,”

“no, you don’t ha-“

“shut,” phil made a little closing motion with his hand, like when a child was making their hand talk like a puppet. “you’re getting popcorn, or i’m going to be very upset with myself for letting you watch a movie with no popcorn,”

the words were ridiculous, but phil seemed serious. so tommy didn’t bother arguing. he felt softer than he had in a while. and not, like, sick soft. more like a happy buzz in his bones.  
you should ask for a hug, a small voice in his head whispered. he won’t mind, just ask.

no. shut up, brain.

phil sat up with a groan. “oh, my poor back,” he grumbled.

“aw, phil has old person back pain,” tubbo teased.

tommy snickered. “yeah. your back is going, old man,”

“oh, shut up,” phil said with a roll of his eyes. “i’m gonna head off to bed. is there anything else you need or want?”

tommy swallowed the voice in his throat that was about to ask for a hug. even though he wanted one. “no, i’m good. go to bed, grandpa,”

“you’re such a little shit,” phil said. “never change,”

tommy grinned. “i won’t,”

phil said a quick goodnight and closed the door behind him, leaving tommy’s room in silence.

“you ok?” tubbo asked. “you look... i dunno. troubled,”

“you look troubled,” tommy shot back. not his best. “but yeah. i’m just... thinking,”

“thinking about what? asking him for a hug?” tubbo guesses.

tommy pulled away from tubbo a little, shooting him a look. “how in hell did you know?”

“because i know you,”

tommy thought that was fair, so he didn’t comment on it. he just sighed, letting tubbo lean on him again. “i wanted to ask for a hug. like, so bad,”

“you can ask me for a hug,” tubbo offered.

“yeah, but it’s not...” tommy sighed. “you’re dead. it won’t be the same,”

“then just ask him. i don’t see your issue,”

“but i don’t deserve it yet,” tommy just needed tubbo to understand.

tubbo gave him an odd look, almost concerned. “deserve it?”

“not- ugh, you know what i mean,”

“well, how do you know if you deserve it? what do you have to do?”

tommy opened his mouth but his voice faltered. he... didn’t know. he never thought about that. he just thought he’d know when he deserved it, when he’d earned it, but what did he have to do to earn it? there had to be something.

 ~~tommy knew deep down he was just scared.~~ (ignore that.)

“what so different about you asking me for a hug than you asking phil for one?” tubbo added. “wouldn’t it be the same?”

tommy groaned. “no, it’s just that phil is...” (phil is what?) “...i don’t know,”

tubbo closed his eyes, a small triumphant smile on his lips. “i think you should just ask him. he wouldn’t be mad at you, i don’t think. he’s nice,”

tommy didn’t answer. partly because he didn’t want to admit that tubbo was right, and partly because he didn’t know what to say.

what was he supposed to say?

after a while, tubbo sat up, stretching his arms to the ceiling. “well, i’m gonna visit ranboo,” he said. “i’ll be back later, i promise. and this is absolutely not a ploy to get you to go to phil,”

tommy snorted. “whatever you say, big man,” he waved to tubbo as the boy phased through the wall, following the glowing figure as he floated down the road.

tommy looked at the ceiling. he wanted to go to phil, he did. because tubbo was right, and tommy was being an idiot. he could ask for a hug whenever he damn well pleased, and he wasn’t scared at all. he was a big man, a little contact wouldn’t hurt.

and that’s how tommy found himself knocking on phil’s bedroom door at around two in the morning. phil was going to be upset, but tommy wasn’t backing down no matter how much he wanted to because he was a big man. and he could do this.

he needed this.

phil opened the door, rubbing his eyes. his hair was a disaster. he looked like he had just woken up. which was probably accurate. “tommy?” he said. his voice was scratchy. “what are you doing here? it’s... i dunno, late,”

tommy realized that he hadn’t planned ahead for if phil actually opened the door.

phil seemed to understand and went back to his bed, leaving his door open. “you can come in, if you want,” he said. “i don’t bite, i promise,”

tommy slowly edged his way to phil’s bed but didn’t sit down at all. or move, really. he just kinda stood there. like a kid waiting for their mom to wake up to say ‘oh i threw up’ or something. the thought almost made him laugh, even though it wasn’t funny. (it was kinda funny. either that or tommy was just delirious.)

“jesus, you look terrified,” phil pointer out with a soft laugh. “loosen up, man. whatever you came for, i promise i’ve heard worse,”

tommy swallowed the lump in his throat and sat on the edge of phil’s bed. he felt like he was made of wood, like he was stuck moving like the goddamn robot from that one movie. (you know the one; with the lion, and the doll guy, and the robot and the girl with the shoes? he’d only seen it once when he was like six.) now that he was sitting down, he could admit he felt slightly more at ease. (what he wouldn’t give have tubbo there.) (clingy.)

“you ok, dude?” phil broke the silence. “did you piss the bed or something? no judgement i you did, i have some fun horror stories from when wilbur was younger,”

ok, ignoring that.

tommy cleared his throat. “c-can i,” fucking hell, he sounded pathetic. stutter and everything. “...fuck,” wow, you’re doing so great tommy. this is going really well for you.

phil cocked his head to the side. his expression softened into something like... either concern or realization, tommy really couldn’t tell.

he cleared his throat again, carefully avoiding phil’s eyes. “...this is probably dumb,” he murmured to himself.

“do you want something, mate?” phil asked. god, how was this guy always so calm? fucking weirdo.

tommy shrugged. “kinda. i dunno. yes?” his voice absolutely didn’t crack in the middle of him speaking. “i’m just... tubbo kinda forced me to come here. it’s stupid. i’m just gonna go,” he said, though made no move to stand up at all. he just sat there, waiting for phil to say something.

“it’s probably not stupid,” phil shrugged. “do you want me to just guess what it is?”

tommy snickered.

“did you commit a crime?”

“why is that your first guess?”

phil raised his arms in a surrender motion. “hey, you never know. lots of crime goes on in these parts,”

they fell back into silence.

tommy tucked his head down, bringing both his arms up to rub at his neck, effectively shielding his face. how the fuck was he even supposed to ask? it seemed incredibly dumb. “...can i have a hug?” he finally said. it was quiet, probably too quiet, but he couldn’t repeat himself so he just hoped phil had heard.

and phil had heard. “oh, is that what you wanted?” he asked. “you could’ve just said so. or just walked in and hug tackled me like techno does sometimes. this is a free-hug zone,”

(as opposed to what? a capitalist kissing booth?) (god, i’m hilarious.)

phil raised his arm to the side, opening himself up. it was like an offering. “c’mere,” he muttered. it wasn’t an order. more of a suggestion.

tommy hesitated before slowly pressing himself into the mans side. it was way warmer than tubbo, which was a drastic change, but a welcome one. phil was more sturdy than tubbo, too. where tubbo was more light and cuddly, phil was acting more as a support, like a rock or something. tommy found himself leaning further into him, just letting himself be open for once.

the heat was almost painful, which tommy hadn’t not been expecting, but it still surprised him. because he’s just that fucking stupid. he was used to tubbo’s cold air, so the warmth was frying his nerves, leaving them exposed and open. but it was still warm, and pressure, and nothing bad at all.

shockingly enough, it was nice. really nice. and tommy could’ve cried, he definitely could’ve. but he didn’t. because he was a big man. and big men don’t cry. unless they did, which was cool.

“is this ok?” phil asked. 

tommy nodded. he wasn’t sure he could speak even if he tried. his mind was already short circuiting at just this amount of contact, but he didn’t mind. 

and god fucking dammit, tubbo was right.

because of fucking course he was.

the prick.

-*-*-

“tommy, my man!” wilbur shouted. “good morning,”

tommy jumped, carefully making sure none of his orange juice spilled from his glass. he glared at wilbur. “i could’ve spilled my fucking oj, man,” he complained. “and why are you so.. this? it’s like nine in the morning,”

“oh, i drank like three monsters this morning. i am on so much caffeine, it’s probably dangerous but it keeps me awake so i don’t see any issues,” how could one man talk so fast without breathing? tommy didn’t know. the answer was probably horrifying.

he took a slow sip of his orange juice, waiting for wilbur to lose his patience. but he didn’t. which was odd normally, but even more so when he was on this much caffeine. (seriously, who drank that much caffeine? just in general?) when wilbur didn't say anything, tommy settled to just sit in relative silence. 

and once again, no earbuds. (why did he just never have them, you may ask? he didn't know either.)

"i actually wanted to talk to you," wilbur said after a long moment. "about the other day? your panic attack thing?"

oh joy.

"god, you're so annoying," tommy said. "it's like your obsessed with me. fucking weirdo,"

wilbur just stared. his expression was some sort of cross between What-The-Fuck and I-Will-Punt-You. "you are very dumb," he stated simply. "and i don't want to force you. but i think it would be good for you to talk about it,"

"well you don't know me very well,"

"and you don't know me very well either, can we please just talk?" wilbur sounded annoyed, which was fair. "i won't push, i promise. i just need to know who to be angry at,"

tommy narrowed his eyes, the peiced clicking neatly together in his brain. "you're planning more murder, aren't you?"

wilbur laughed, but it was nervous and high pitched. "whaat? no, i would never. why, who told you?"

"you did. just now,"

"touche," wilbur closed his eyes. "oh, i am going to crash very hard later. have you ever had coffee?"

"no. i'm a minor,"

"minors can drink coffee,"

tommy realized they were stalling. "is there a point to this conversation?" he said. just move it along, get it over with. that way he could move on and he never had to deal with this again. "or are you just going to talk to me about drugs the whole time?"

'caffeine isn't a drug," wilbur said. he opened his mouth, and then realization fell on his face. "ignore that. but yes, there is a point. you! trauma! venting! yay!"

yay.

wilbur sat on the couch, throwing his legs over the edge like a bitch. "so. where should we start?"

(as if i'm supposed to fucking know.) "i dunno," tommy replied. "jutst ask away, i guess,"

"alright, sounds like a plan," wilbur tapped his chin. "a terrible plan, but still a plan,"

**[oh boy fun talking about trauma. very little description, but it could still be triggering or just difficult to read. if you don’t want to read this bit just skip forward, there'll be a tldr at the end so you’ll still get he gist. stay safe, homies!]**

wilbur crossed his hands over his chest as though he were in therapy, meanwhile tommy was just sat on the floor, his legs and arms crossed. it was like reverse thrapy, the patient sitting down while the therapist was on the couch... thing. nevermind, that's a bad comparison.

“so... where should we start?” wilbur asked. “i’ve never been a therapist before,”

 _and you never will be,_ tommy thought. he snickered at his own little joke before cleaning his throat. “i don’t know. i’ve never had therapy before,” he said. 

wilbur laughed a little at that. “fair enough, me neither. should i just ask how you’re feeling?”

“i’m feeling pretty shit, to be honest,” tommy said with a shrug. “but that’s my usual state, so i don’t know what you’re going to do with that,”

“fair enough,” wilbur stroked his chin, as though he was a cartoon villain. “where do we go from here, then?”

“we could just end it there,”

“no, that’s lame,”

tommy let out a huff of air from his nose. “just be as blunt as possible,” he said. he hated it when people tried to sugarcoat things to make him feel better, it made him feel like a child. and he was not a child. 

wilbur fixed tommy with a stare. “ok,” he said. he sat up, leaning his elbows on his knees and lacing his fingers together under his chin. “who hit you?” he asked. 

tommy blinked. “what?”

“you said to be blunt, so i’m being blunt. who hit you?”

tommy frowned. “why do you want to know?”

wilbur groaned. “listen, i know you know that i know why you panicked the other day. i just want to know who i’m supposed to be mad at,” he explained. 

“yes, but why?” tommy narrowed his eyes. he had a feeling he knew why, but he didn’t bother saying it. 

“if you’re scared i’m gonna murder them or something, don’t worry. i’m not killing anyone. i just want to know who to be mad at,”

“just don’t be mad at anyone,”

wilbur pinched the bridge of his nose then dragged his hand down his face, pulling the bottoms of his eyelids down. “jesus christ,” he muttered. “listen, i just want to know who to be angry at. because i’m pissed off about what happened to you, and i just want to know who i’m supposed to be pissed off at,” he brought his fingertips together in a sort of praying motion, pointing his fingers towards tommy. “do you understand?”

tommy gripped his forearms a little tighter. “...whatever,” he said. 

wilbur beamed. “excellent. now, can you answer the question?”

tommy wracked his brain, but he only came up with a couple names. he knew there were more, but he just couldn’t remember them for the life of him. “i only remember two,” he told wilbur. “so that’s as good as you’re getting,”

“i can go get a list, if you want,” wilbur said. “maybe that’ll help,”

tommy shrugged. 

wilbur scurried off up the stairs, and returned a couple minutes later with a piece of paper with names scribbled on it. two of them were noticeably scratched out, but tommy didn’t mention it. 

he scanned the paper, and each name brought back too many memories. he skipped over a couple. he counted about four names from the ones he could bear to read. “yeah, this... kind of helps,” he said. “hurts to look back at,”

wilbur hummed. “yeah, i can only imagine. any of them i need to know about?”

tommy pointed at the four names he could remember. evan peterson, carrie evans, grayson thompson, and ashley key. they were the bad ones, but he was lucky he had only four. some of the kids at the group home (usually the older ones, sixteen or seventeen year olds.) shared horror stories with the rest of them. some had more than five, and some were lucky enough to have had only one. so tommy was one of the lucky ones. 

wilbur nodded as he pointed them out. his eyes were dark. dangerous. “ok. is that all of them?”

tommy shrugged. “i don’t know,” he answered honestly. “there are probably more,”

“ok. you don’t need to tell me about those ones if you don’t want to. is there anyone else you want me to keep you away from?”

oh. he was trying to keep tommy away from them. tommy felt the space behind his heart smile. 

one person came to mind, though. “lisa,” he said. the name made his mouth taste bitter, and he hadn’t exactly meant to say it. it just sorta slipped out. “she’s horrible. she, uh... she hit me once, too,”

wilbur’s expression changes from sad to angry before tommy had time to blink. “she what?” he said. he sounded beyond angry. 

tommy shrugged. “eh. that’s just how it is sometimes,”

“i’m sorry, she hit you?” wilbur said in disbelief.

“only a little,”

“she’s a social worker, wouldn’t that be fucking illegal? how does she still have her job?!”

“i don’t think it’s illegal, exactly,”

“she should be fucking fired!”

“that would never happen. it’s her word against mine, and nobody ever believes me about anything,”

“this isn’t ok!”

“and murder is?”

“i draw the line at child abuse,”

“for some reason i think murder should be higher up on your list,”

wilbur growled, pressing his palms against his eyes. “tommy, what...”

“it only happened, like, twice. chill,” tommy said flippantly. “besides, it really doesn’t matter. i can deal with it myself. i only have three and a half more years in the system, then i’m free,”

wilbur stares at him, his eyes boring into tommy’s skull. “i can’t let phil send you back,” he said resolutely.

tommy scoffed. “what the fuck are you gonna do about it if he does?” he asked. “you’re barely even an adult, loser,”

wilbur set his jaw. “i’ll tell phil about lisa,”

tommy blinked. then swallowed. then took a deep breath. “no,” he said. 

wilbur looked taken aback. “what? what do you mean ‘no’?”

“i mean no. you aren’t telling phil,” 

“wh- yes i am? i can’t let him send you back, lisa’s a terrible social worker and a bad person! we can report her, or something, i don’t know,” at some point wilbur had stood up and started pacing, holding his hand over his mouth. “unless you want to tell him?”

tommy scoffed. “i’d rather die, thanks,” he said. “i’m not telling phil shit. and neither are you,”

wilbur reaches out to point a finger in tommy’s face, but curled his hand back into a fist and hit the side of it against his forehead. “god, you’re impossible. but fine. i won’t tell phil,”

tommy blinked. “good. i honestly thought you would put up more of a fight,”

wilbur just nodded silently. 

“are you giving me the silent treatment, bitchboy?” tommy said. when he got no response he squirmed a little. “this is actually rather uncomfortable, wilbur,”

“good,”

“ok, wow. rude. is that any way to treat your superior?”

wilbur looked at him then, his gaze soft. “tommy, can i hug you?” he asked. “i feel like you need one,”

tommy clenched his jaw and gripped his arms tighter. “no. i dont hug murderers,”

wilbur rolled his eyes. “oh, come on. i haven’t killed anyone in, like, a week,”

 _the fuck do you want for that? a gold star?_

“but seriously, do you?” wilbur asked again. “because i’ve been told i give good hugs,”

tommy glared at him. “i said no, bitchboy,” he said. “no means no, you prick,”

wilbur raised his hands in a surrender motion, closing his eyes and raising his eyebrows. “alright, suit yourself,” he said, his voice lilting into a weirdly higher tone. “whatever you want,”

the back of tommy’s head yelled at him that he was being a fucking moron, but he was an expert at ignoring his thoughts, both rational and dumb. 

**[ok, you’re safe now. TLDR: lisa’s a shit person, wilbur isn’t killing anyone, and tommy is still touch starved and stubborn. ok, back to the family bonding.]**

and it was quiet again. he needed to change the subject, start a different conversation, fill the soundless environment with pointless chatter. he searched his surroundings, looking for something he could use to start a conversation or something. and then a genius idea punched him square in the nose. 

he scurried to the couch and stole one of the big fluffy blankets, wrapping it around his shoulders and head, leaving his face free. “wilbur, look,” he said. “i’m a fuckin worm,” he wiggled his shoulders from side to side like he was trying to prove it. 

wilbur laughed. he reached to the couch and placed a pillow on his head. “i am a toad,” he said in a deep throaty voice. “and i am the king. bow down to me,”

tommy scrunched up his nose. “why are you the king? toads shouldn’t be kings. they’re a shit animal,”

wilbur gasped dramatically. “you dare disrespect your ruler?!” he said. “i am all powerfu-“ he cut himself off with a loud cough. “fuck, that voice was a mistake,”

tommy laughed. “that’s what you get for being a toad, bitchboy,” 

there were footsteps from the stairs, and tommy looked over to see techno with his pink hair loose around his shoulders. 

“did you cut your fucking hair?” wilbur sounded shocked. his eyes were wide and the pillow had fallen into his lap, though tommy wasn’t sure when. “when did that happen?!”

techno flinched, his ears twitching. “good morning to you as well,” he said flatly. “why are you guys on the floor?”

tommy puffed out his chest. “i am the worm king,” he said, making his voice lower to assert dominance. “who do you think you are, talking to me like this?”

techno and wilbur shared a look. techno went to the kitchen and opened a drawer, pulling out two rolls of scotch tape and looping them around his ears. (the rolls, not the tape.) “i am... uh...” he looked to wilbur as he sat down next to him. 

“this is my friend, the, uh...” wilbur said. “...well, it should be obvious what he is, yes?”

tommy came up with an animal almost immediately. “hmm, yes. your friend is clearly, uh, jonathan the aardvark,” he said, stretching out his vowels a little, clearly trying to stall a little. 

techno nodded. “yep. that’s me,” he said. “jonathan the aardvark,”

wilbur placed his pillow back on his head. “yes, and i am the toad king,”

“no, i’m the worm king. there can only be one king,” tommy said. “it’s common sense, you toad fucker,”

techno nodded again, adjusting the tape rolls on his ears and scooted backwards to lean against the couch. “yes, it seems that would be obvious,”

wilbur turned his head away in a faux-snooty attitude. “well, this seems somewhat toadist. toadophobic,”

“i don’t think you can say that,” techno pointed out. “but ok,”

tommy stuck his hand out of the blanket, raising it with his palm facing outwards. “silence, subjects. toad, for your crimes, you must be executed,”

techno grinned. “hell yeah,” he said, holding the ending syllable for a couple seconds. 

“no!” wilbur yelled. “this isn’t fair,”

more footsteps. “what’s going on down here?” phil asked. 

“wilbur’s getting executed, techno’s an aardvark, and i’m the fuckin worm king,” tommy explained quickly. “this is a very important court meeting, so your interruption must have a good explanation,”

phil smiled but still looked confused. “well, this is my house, and i wanted to get some coffee,”

wilbur turned to face him. “phil, tommy is bullying me. he’s being toadist,” he whined. 

techno’s ears twitched and he reached up to keep his tape rolls steady and on his ears. “i still don’t think you can say that,”

phil stepped through the middle of the circle. “well, maybe you should just accept your fate, mate,” he said. “techno, don’t forget to put the tape back when you guys are done,”

tommy turned back to wilbur as phil got the coffee going. “now, bitchboy,” he said. “how would you like to be executed?”

“what if you just didn’t execute me?” wilbur suggested. 

“hmm, no,” tommy shook his head. “this is why you’re being executed. you can’t just not be a dick for more than three seconds, can you?”

phil laughed from his spot the kitchen. 

“time to die, bitch,” tommy said. 

wilbur leaped to his feet, holding the pillow on his head. “you’ll have to catch me!” he shouted. he booked it up the stairs, coming back with an actual fucking sword. “en guard, motherfucker,”

techno took the sword from his hands. “that’s mine,” he said simply. “i would die before i let you use my things,”

“no, techno! you’re ruining this,”

“it’s a sword”

“i promise i won’t break it,”

“you’re a walking disaster, why would i let you one of my swords? this isn’t even supposed to be used, it’s a collectible,”

tommy interrupted them by hitting wilbur in the back of the head with a pillow. 

wilbur turned around slowly, his eyes gleaming. “i see how it is,” he said. he took the pillow from his head and swung it back at tommy. 

“you wanna go, bitch?” tommy said. “i’m the god of pillow fights!”

“i thought you were the worm king?”

“who says he can’t be both?” techno asked. 

phil snickered again. “god, you guys are a disaster waiting to happen,” he said, grabbing a pillow of his own. “mind if i join you?”

tommy tapped his chin. “hmm,” he hummed. “jonathan?”

techno shrugged. “i don’t see why not. state your name, old man,” he said. 

phil scoffed lightly. “i’m really not that old,” he said. “i am, uh...” he grabbed a thin blanket, gripping he corners and spreading his arms out like wings. “i am the bat. and i am very evil!” 

tommy squealed as phil started to chase him around the room, playfully shouting things about how evil he was. wilbur was lugging, and techno was smiling a little. at some point wilbur threw a pillow intro he mix, and that’s when all hell broke loose. 

pillows flew everywhere, and all of them were fighting for themselves. techno was winning by a lot, or so he said, nobody was really keeping score. wilbur and tommy had teamed up, and were standing back to back dramatically, waiting to make their Special move. finally, the moment came. when phil and techno were standing beside each other wilbur and tommy swung their pillows so they hit them on either side, and they managed to knock phil and techno’s heads together. 

“ow,” techno said simply. one of his ears was pressed against the side of his head. 

phil nodded, his eyes sparkling. “yes, techno. ow,”

tommy and wilbur shot each other a look, and promptly bolted up the stairs, phil and techno on their tails. they hid out in wilbur’s room, locking the door. 

“you can’t hide in there forever!” phil teased. “the moment you come outside we’ll destroy you!”

wilbur laughed loudly. “you’re too old to be making these accusations!” he said. “besides, we could survive in here for months if we have to. 

tommy flopped on wilbur’s bed, the scent of iron hitting his nose. he didn’t want to question it. “we’re too strong,” he muttered. “wilbur, tell them we’re too strong,”

“we’re too strong!” wilbur said to the door. 

there was laughter from outside, muffled but still bright and joyful.

“sure you are, mate,” phil shouted back. 

wilbur sat on his bed with a huff, but there was still a wide smile on his face. he turned to tommy. “you wanna chill in here for a bit?” he asked. 

tommy nodded. “we’re gonna destroy them,” he said. 

wilbur nodded. 

tommy let his eyes slide closed. he was aware of the grin on his face but didn’t care to try and get rid of it. he rolled onto his side, grabbing wilbur’s stuffed sheep and holding it tightly against his chest. 

“you like them?” wilbur asked. “their name is friend. techno got it for me three years ago,”

oh. the sheep. 

tommy nodded, cracking an eye open. “i thought you liked sharks,”

“did i ever tell you that?”

“no. phil did,”

wilbur snorted. “figures,” tommy heard the blankets rustle as he lied down. “i lost my shark plushie ages ago. some motherfucker stole it at the park, and i haven’t seen it since. so techno got me friend,” wilbur laughed a little. “he doesn’t want me to tell you, but he’s a huge fucking sap,”

“techno?”

“yeah. techno,”

“huh,” tommy said. “that’s... not as surprising as i think it should be,”

“yeah,”

they lapsed into silence, but it was more comforting than it was awkward, cushioned by blankets and pillows and overall Good Vibes. the air was soft, and it weighed comfortably on tommy’s chest. 

he realized he felt safe. 

-*-*-

phil’s car still smelled like mcdonald’s. but tommy was starting to get used to it, he barely even noticed anymore. there was loud music blasting through the speakers, and phil was singing along rather horribly. he and tubbo were in the backseat, and whenever phil would hit a high note they would cringe a little bit.

“jesus, you are so bad,” tommy commented. “how is it even possible to be this untalented?”

phil laughed then resumed his terrible rendition of We Are The Champions. 

tubbo groaned. “this is hell. we are in hell,” he said. “why did i agree to join you?”

“you can leave at any time, big man,”

“not a chance,”

phil continued singing while tommy and tubbo chatted lightly. the overall vibe was nice, and tommy was really starting to think that he could get used to this. to the feeling of normalcy. 

they pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store, and made their way to the door. 

“ok,” phil started. “i have a couple rules here, ok?”

tommy and tubbo nodded dutifully. 

“rule number one, if you want candy, you have to get something healthy. like an apple for a chocolate bar,” phil said. 

tommy made a face and tubbo nodded. 

“rule number two, only one toy allowed. only one,” phil stood up straight like a sergeant or something. “and my last rule is to not go over the two hundred dollar limit,”

two hundred dollar limit? that’s ridiculous. and tommy was absolutely going to be the biggest shit about it. 

“am i understood?” phil asked, clapping his hands once and holding them together. 

“sir yes sir!” tubbo said. 

“sure, whatever,” tommy said at the same time. 

phil pushes the door open. “alright. go nuts,” he said. 

tommy immediately booked it to the candy aisle, tubbo on his trail. “what do you feel like, big man?” tommy asked. “i’m thinking fuzzy peaches and swedish berries,”

tubbo shrugged. “i dunno, man. i don’t think i can even... eat,”

“fair point. wanna get something to prank wilbur?”

tubbo’s eyes lit up. “oh, absolutely,” he said. 

they ran through aisles, finally stopping at the craft supplies section. they made a plan to each scan one side, pick out some supplies, and then pool it together to make a plan. tubbo was thinking something like the spy kids movie where they turn back time, white tommy was thinking more Let’s Just Fuck Up His Room, but they would make it work. 

they eventually came back with tubbo holding about two yards of string, a stupid amount of glue, and a bag of marbles, while tommy had food colouring, copious amounts of glitter, fabric paint, and a colouring book just for kicks. 

“what can we do with these?” tubbo asked. “just dump this shit in his room?”

tommy thoughts for a moment. then he came up with something that was just so fucking brilliant. 

“tubbo,” he said. “we can make slime. and pour it on his bed,”

“nah, that’s boring,” tubbo complained. “let’s just go in there and wreck his shit. dump glitter on the floor, put the string everywhere, dump glue on his bed, replace his clothes with marbles and colour all his shirts bright fucking orange,” the more he spoke, the more excited he seemed to get. “we can cause enough chaos to kill god,”

jesus christ. this man was insane. 

tommy grinned. “let’s fucking do it,” he said. 

tommy grabbed some more candy, and they ran to the actual food aisles to find phil. when they dumped their supplies in the shopping cart, phil shot them a look. 

“what are you two planning to do with all this?” he asked. 

tubbo and tommy shared a look. 

“craft,” said tommy at the same time as tubbo, who said “we’re smiting god,”

phil scrunched up his eyebrows and nodded. “oh... kay,” he said slowly. “very cool,” he turned his attention to the candies. “tommy, you need some healthy shit if you want all that,”

tommy groaned but went to the fruits aisle. vegetables are shit. he picked out some kiwis and apples and dumped them in he shopping cart beside his candy, earning a small nod from phil. they continued their shopping trip, tubbo rummaging through the cart every chance he got. they payed quickly and left, tubbo and tommy buzzing with excitement in the back seat. 

“ok, you two are very clearly planning something,” phil said, a smile in his voice. “and i’m not sure if i want to know,”

“we wouldn’t tell you if you asked,” tubbo said teasingly. “your old man brain wouldn’t understand,”

“ah, of course,” phil rolled his eyes. 

they drove for a while, and the conversations killed to a slow stop. phil was no longer singing (thank god.) and tubbo had gone silent. tommy watched as their scenery changed from the town to flat land, inhabited by abandoned barns and houses and clumps of trees. phil lived stupidly far away, tommy just assumed the guy liked his privacy. which was fair. 

**OK HOO BOY VERY GOREY STUFF AHEAD YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED THERE WILL BE ANOTHER TLDR FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT READ, PLS STAY SAFE MWAH MWAH**

they pulled into the drive way, and tubbo floated through the side of he car. tommy grabbed the bags of craft supplies and bounded happily to the door, excited to proceed to phase two of The Prank. phil was on the phone, so tommy grabbed the spare key from under the tacky green welcome mat. he unlocked the door with a soft click, and pushed it open. 

**[ok, last chance to Dip. this is very graphic, and i may not be the best with descriptions but i don’t want y’all to risk it. ok, let’s go.]**

first, tommy saw red. so much red. he thoughts his eyes were tricking him, but that was quickly disproved when he blinked hard three times. there was red coating the floor and the bottom half of the walls, and some was even on the popcorn ceilings. it shone in the dim light from the windows, which were covered by the curtains. the bottom of said curtains were no longer a cream white colour, rather they were painted red and brown. 

it took a moment to register that the red was blood.

and then the smell punched him square in the fucking jaw. the thick smell of iron and sweat, it made the air heavy. you could practically taste it. tommy almost gagged on the smell, but he was too busy trying not to pass out from the sight alone for his body to properly react. 

what in the actual fuck. 

the more he stared, the more gruesome it was. he could vaguely piece together bits of guts and gore drifting through the blood on the floor, but he didn’t want to think about those. he tried to take a couple deep breaths, but he couldn’t. not with the smell. 

what the fuck what the fuck. 

tommy heard tubbo speaking, but it sounded far away, as if everything was underwater. the edges of his vision were starting to turn black. 

then he realized something horrifying. something much worse than everything else he had seen. 

there was a figure in the centre of it all, hunched over and breathing heavily. they were standing at the source, which was another dark figure, which tommy presumed used to be a person. the standing figure made a motion, and there was a sickening crack, following by the sound of something tearing open. the figure lurched forward, and there was a crunch. as if biting into an apple. 

oh. 

_oh._

tommy choked back a sob, and that seemed to get the figures attention. they whipped around, wiping something from their mouth. probably blood. 

tommy knew that face, and that fact made the room start to spin. his vision went dark, and he hazily registered the sense of falling. when he hit the ground, it felt soft like a pillow. he let the darkness take over his mind. 

the last thing he saw was wilbur’s expression of horror. 

**[ok, you’re safe. it’s over now. tldr: wilbur gets caught just straight up eating someone. i do not condone anything wilbur does, and i swear it’s not as bad as it looks.]**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I HAVE THE NEXT CHAPTER ALREADY STARTED I JUST WNATED TO LEAVE THIS ON A CLIFFHANGER TO FUCK WITH YOU LMAO SUCK IT
> 
> also i swear it’s not as bad as i made it seem, i swear wilbur isn’t that bad i swea
> 
> in other news i might write a httyd and dream smp crossover, just because i fucking can and also dragons are cool. watch me actually fucking do that weiubwiug


	6. Train.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wilbur fucked up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg hi besties! :D
> 
> oh boy howdy i took a break from writing this for like half an hour to pump out 3000 words of an actor au that i will not be posting or finishing because i miss doing theatre without breaking down so i took that out on white boys who play minecraft
> 
> anyways ao3 tag system my beloved

something about phil; he rarely got angry. 

yes, he got annoyed, and frustrated, and he would sometimes yell at people over the phone. even when wilbur explained his situation, phil had responded with sympathy and understanding, and a simple compromise. when techno had arrived and stolen their food, phil had offered him a place to stay. 

sure, he would get pissed off at video games and he would shout. he would jokingly yell at his friends, but it was soon followed by a laugh. 

and when phil was proper angry, you would know. 

and wilbur didn’t know what it would be like to see phil angry, let alone furious. but when he saw the mans eyes after he laid tommy down in his room, he suddenly wished for the sweet release of death. anything to get him out of this. 

“wilbur,” phil said, his voice icily calm. terrifying. “explain,” it wasn’t a request. 

wilbur swallowed down the last bit of blood at the back of his throat. “phil, i...” what the fuck was he supposed to say? “i’m so sorry,” he choked out. “fuck, i fucked up, and i’m sorry, i ruined everything,”

“you should be sorry,” phil said simply. merciless. “you should be so incredibly fucking sorry,”

wilbur opened his mouth, but phil cut him off with a glare. he shut his mouth, looking down. god, how did he let it get this messy? he was usually so careful. 

“wilbur,” phil said. he was so calm in the way that could only happen if someone was truly enraged. “this is beyond irresponsible. i have three rules regarding your condition. do you know what those two rules are?”

wilbur wanted to run. “don’t make a mess, don’t let anyone see me, don’t do it before the sun goes down,” he recited. “i’m sorry, i wasn’t thinking,” it was a shitty excuse and he knew it, but it was he only one he had. 

phil laughed, but there was no humour. “cut the shit. explain what happened, start to finish. now,”

and wilbur told him. he told him how he killed the first two, then a third one tommy didn’t know about, and they were all methodical and planned out. he had gotten help from techno for those ones. and then when he found out about lisa, he was angry, and the next thing he knew she was bleeding out in the living room, and it was too late to turn back, so he might as well finish. “i didn’t know when you two were coming home, i didn’t-“

“i fucking told you!” phil shouted then. “i told you when we would be home! and you should know by now that this is... god, you’re such a fucking idiot!”

wilbur winced. it wasn’t the first time he’d been told that, but he’d never heard it in that tone. 

fuck. 

“wilbur, it isn’t just me you and techno anymore. you need to think ahead,” phil continued, rubbing his temples. his arms were shaking. “and not to mention you do this in broad daylight?! you broke every single rule i have for you! every single one!”

“i know,” wilbur said. his voice was barely a whisper. “i’m sorry,”

phil barked out a single laugh, but nothing was funny. “oh, that solves it,” he said sarcastically. “wilbur, what were you thinking?”

“i don’t know, i’m sorry! i fucked up!”

“yes. you fucked up,”

“i just- i didn’t know what else to do, i-i was pissed off and then i-“

phil raised a hand to shut wilbur up, and it was surprisingly successful. “wilbur, i need you to understand something,” he said, his tone slow and controlled, but there was bubbling lava at the back of his voice. “every person you’ve chosen can be traced to tommy. no matter how shitty of people they are, the police aren’t imbeciles. they will notice a pattern, and they will trace everything to me, and then to him,” phil barely blinked as he spoke. “i could go to jail, they’ll take you and techno away, and they’ll send tommy to another shit home with nothing, and there’s nothing you’ll be able to do to help him,”

wilbur didn’t know what to say. “i’m sorry,” was all he could think off. “i’m sorry,”

“well, don’t apologize to me!” phil shouted. wilbur flinched. “because i’m not the one you hurt with your actions, wilbur! sure, i’ll have to clean the— god, i’ll clean this fucking mess you made, and i’ll keep you all safe, and i’m absolutely furious with you but you don’t need to apologize to me. you need to apologize to tommy. the poor kids already been through so much, can you just imagine what it would be like to see this?”

wilbur couldn’t imagine. he couldn’t begin to imagine. he couldn’t even try. 

phil pinched the bridge of his nose with both hands, squeezing his eyes shit. he looked about three seconds away from exploding. he took a deep breath. “you know the protocol?” he asked calmly. “do you know?”

wilbur nodded. he felt like a child getting shouted at by his parents. when was the last time that had actually happened?

“ok,” phil turned to go upstairs. “pack your things. you can explain everything to tommy when we get to the safe house. understood?”

“mhm,” wilbur hummed. he waited until phil was in tommy’s room to go upstairs, trying his best not to get any attention. he ignored the quiet sobs coming from behind tommy’s door. 

he burst into techno’s room, curling up on the bed. 

“hi,” techno asked from his desk. “is he pissed?”

wilbur hummed in acknowledgement, and techno didn’t press further. 

techno’s room was wilbur’s favourite in the house. it’s walls were painted a nice cream colour from when phil and wilbur refurbished the house, and techno had kept it. he had swords hanging on the walls. all of techno’s furniture was either stolen, built by himself, or clean-cut white ikea furniture. his desk used to be white, but years of use by both wilbur and techno left it covered in scratches and stickers and paint stains, and there were one or two drops of blood on the side. it was like a time capsule, every stain telling a story. 

techno had a soft pink rug beside his bed, and his dresser was brown and homemade. it had given everyone at least one splinter. it was terrible, but techno refused to get rid of it. 

techno’s bed was the best part of the room. it was a light brown, and looked like something from Ye Olden Days. the blankets were soft, pink and red and gold. they were weighted and plush, perfect for curling up during winter. techno loved them. (they almost never got cleaned, but he didn’t mind. they didn’t smell that bad anyway, he would spray them with some sweet smelling spray every week, so no one ever complained.) 

techno hid any stuffed animals he had under the bed, but when he was alone he kept them out in the open. he only had three; a pig, a polar bear he named steve, and a bat with big button eyes and stitched on patches. wanna guess what the bats name was? (it’s name was bat.)

wilbur grabbed techno’s pig and held it close to his chest. “i fucked up, man,” he mumbled.

techno nodded. “you sure did,” he said. “i’m assumin’ we have to pack?”

wilbur didn’t answer. but that was an answer in and of itself. 

“are we ever comin’ back?” techno asked. he sounded genuinely nervous at the thought of never returning. 

“i don’t know,” wilbur replied. “maybe. phil says we’re going to the safe house,”

“safe house?”

“some of phil’s friends have a house super far away, middle of nowhere, and they let people like us hide out whenever we need to,” wilbur explained. 

techno flicked his eyes to wilbur for a moment then went back to his book. “ok,” he said. “how much are we allowed to pack?”

“i don’t know,”

“one carry-on one backpack?”

would it be a carry-on if they were taking a train and a bus? maybe. wilbur didn’t really care. smaller suitcases were carry-ons, no exceptions. 

“yeah,” wilbur replied. 

techno sighed. “you’re an idiot,” he said. “like, the biggest fuckin’ idiot,”

“are you mad at me too?”

“i don’ know. maybe. i don’ think so. i know what you were doin’, it’s a necessity, whatever, but you just traumatized a child,” techno closed his book, keeping his place with two fingers. “i can’t blame you for what you did, but also i blame you completely,”

“to be fair you helped with the first three,” wilbur pointed out. “so,”

techno huffed out a laugh. “whatever. you asked me to go get ‘em with you, so i did,”

“remember when you carried me bridal style to california and back?”

“god, don’t remind me,”

“it was hilarious,”

“it was embarrassin’”

wilbur snickered. “god, you’re lucky no one saw us,” he said. “i would hold that over your head forever,”

“you already do,”

“and?”

techno rolled his eyes, going back to his book. something about greek mythology. “is there anythin’ else you wanted from me? or are you simply here to be annoyin’?”

wilbur hugged pig tighter. “i’m upset,” he said. “i shouldn’t be upset, but i’m upset,”

“you’re allowed to be upset,” techno said, flipping a page. “what are you upset about?”

“dumb question,” wilbur wrapped the blankets around his boulders. “i’m just upset with myself, i guess. i’m usually so careful,”

“yeah, i was gonna ask about that. what the fuck happened, wilbur?”

“i don’t know! it’s like i blacked out and next thing i knew i was in the living room!” wilbur buried his nose in the blankets, letting his hair shield him completely. “and now phil’s pissed. he might kick me out,” his voice cracked. 

techno looked up then, his ears twitching. “he might what?” he sounded shocked. “he can’t kick you out,”

“he owns the place,”

“and you’ve been here forever,” techno dog-eared his page and sat beside wilbur on the bed. “he can’t just kick you out, you’ve been here so much longer than he has,” he tugged the blankets and wilbur let him come underneath. “and he would never kick you out. he’s too nice,”

wilbur nodded. “is it ok if i touch you?” he asked softly. techno nodded, and wilbur leaned his head on techno’s shoulder. “i am still very upset,”

techno hummed and swatted wilbur’s hair out of his face. “your hair is ticklin’ me,” he complained.

wilbur huffed out of his nose and smiled. “as if that’s my fault,” he said. “why did you cut your hair? i meant to ask yesterday,”

techno shrugged with his free shoulder. “i just felt like it. didn’t like how heavy it was,”

“one of those days?”

“yeah,”

“hmm,”

they lapsed into silence, huddled together under the blankets. the sun was just starting to go down, painting the room in strips of orange and gold. techno shifted to put his head atop wilbur’s. they sat like that for a while, just sitting in the silence. it was actually quite nice considering the circumstances.

wilbur closed his eyes. “i don’t know what to do,” he admitted. “i can’t— i feel like i’ve ruined everything,”

techno hummed but didn’t say anything. 

“like, i— tommy’s probably— fuck,” wilbur looked down, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. “i can’t be upset about this, i’m the— i fucked up, i can’t be upset about that. it’s my fault,”

techno placed a hand on his back, probably an attempt to comfort him. it was working, if only by a little bit. 

“i was just— you know, i...” wilbur held back the tears starting to form behind his eyes. he shouldn’t be crying over this. “i don’t know what to do,” he whispered. “i just don’t know what to do, how am i supposed to— how can i fix this?”

techno rested his chin on wilbur’s head. “i don’ know either,” he said. “but i know you’ll figure it out. you’re smart,” 

wilbur huffed out of his nose and smiled. techno was terrible with words, even though he was in ap english, but he tried. no one was sure how effective it was, but wilbur found techno’s awkward way of stumbling through his sentences comforting. made him more human. even though he... y’know. wasn’t. 

“thank, tech,” wilbur muttered. “should we pack?”

techno nodded but made no move to stand up.

maybe they could sit like this. sit in the last bit of peace they would have for a while. in the house they weren’t sure they’d ever return to. if only for a little.

“is tommy coming with us?” techno asked. “he’s not exactly... adopted,”

wilbur shrugged.

“alright, fair enough,” techno whispered. “i guess we’re just taking him with us, then?” wilbur nodded. “cool. kidnapping is very cool,”

wilbur snorted at that. “ok, calm down,”

“says the murderer,”

“says the cryptid,”

“says the cannibal,”

“ok, i’ve told you a hundred times, it isn’t fucking cannibalism!”

“ehhh,” techno laughed as wilbur hit him lightly in the shoulder. “i’m gonna miss this house,” he said softly. 

wilbur stifled his words. this was his house. he’d lived there his whole life, before phil, before anyone. it was his. he was there when it burned down, when people had died, when phil had fixed it, when he was struggling to get used to his new body, when he started going to school again. every breakdown, panic attack, soft moment, and close call took place in this house. it hurt to say goodbye, but there was no choice.

and wilbur cried about it. but only a little bit.

-*-*-

tommy was oddly quiet on the ride to the train station. well, not oddly. he was traumatized. needless to say, wilbur was... concerned. but not surprised. the entire car ride, the poor kid just stared out the window in the backseat, his eyes glossy and swirling with unreadable emotions. 

techno shifted uncomfortably. “it’s too quiet,” he whispered to wilbur. “can you ask phil to turn on some music?”

wilbur nodded. he tapped phil on the shoulder, but phil didn’t say anything. he just pressed two buttons, and some music was playing. 

the tension could’ve been cut with a knife. a big metaphorical knife. and wilbur fucking hated it. it was like you could taste the words that weren’t being said, but you couldn’t quite place what they tasted like. he knew they were angry, but there were undertones of fear and something else he couldn’t name no matter how hard he tried.

he looked down at his lap, where he backpack was balancing in between his knees. his quitta was in the trunk, along with everyone’s luggage. techno had freaked out over which stuffed animal he should bring, but he finally just gave up and brought all three and stored them in wilbur’s suitcase.

the silence was sickening. and not in the good way. it was actually starting to make wilbur feel sick. sure, there was music, but no one spoke the whole ride. techno looked nervous too, fidgety and restless in the front seat.

phil parked the car neatly, clicking his seatbelt open. “ok, we’re here,” he announced. but there was barely any emotion. he just sounded... tired. “everyone get your bags. tommy, this is your last chance to opt out,”

tommy’s eyes flicked to wilbur for a second, but he swallowed and nodded. 

phil sighed. “ok. whatever you say, mate,” he said. “wilbur, take techno and go to the counter. tell them you’re getting tickets for phil watson and pay him,” he handed wilbur his credit card. “no trinkets, no nothing,”

wilbur nodded quickly, taking the card and grabbing his shit from the trunk. he and techno walked in relative silence. the train station was always quiet this late at night, which they could appreciate.

“hey,” wilbur asked, pushing techno’s arm with his own. “you ok?”

techno swallowed and his ears twitched. “i hate being in public,”

“cryptid thing or social anxiety thing?”

“both,”

wilbur nodded. “you can go hideout in the bathroom, if you want. and put up your hood,”

techno saluted a little, throwing up his hood and scurrying off to the bathroom, leaving wilbur alone.

he knocked on the counter, successfully gaining the attention of the woman on the other side. “hello, miss,” he said, his voice falsely calm. “i’m here to get tickets under the name of phil watson?”

the lady rolled her eyes and checked the computer. she had piercings, although she looked to be only fifteen. “you’re phil?” she drawled.

“no, i’m his son. he’s in the car right now,” was he lying about the son thing? he didn’t care. “i have the money to pay,”

the girl scanned him over. “you don’t look like a phil,” she pointed out. “you look like a daniel,” she tapped something on her keyboard. “three youth tickets, one adult ticket?” she asked.

wilbur nodded. “can we hurry this up?” he said. “we’re on a pretty tight schedule,”

the girl rolled her eyes. “whatever,” she handed him the credit card scanner... thing. he scanned the card quickly and stuffed it back in his pocket. “nice to meet you, daniel,” the girl said, handing him four crisp yellow tickets. “have a nice day,”

“it’s wilbur,” wilbur corrected. “god, why am i even telling you that?” he ran a hand through his hair. 

the girl looked offended. “what, just cause i’m working at the till that means i don’t deserve to be spoken to?” she said incredulously. “that’s incredibly discriminatory,”

“no, it’s not—“ wilbur growled. “i’m just— i can’t be late to meet my dad. he’s very angry with me at the moment,”

the girls eyes lit up. “ooh, what did you do?” she asked. “something bad?”

“no, well— yes,” he admitted. “something very bad,”

the girl hummed. “i feel that. i have strict parents, so i’m always doing shit wrong,” she said. “did you spend some money, or something? you getting kicked out?”

wilbur pressed his lips together. “i’d rather not say,” he said. “i really have to get going, i’m sorry. it was nice to meet you, uh...”

“lucy,”

“lucy. it was nice to meet you, lucy,” wilbur waved as he walked away.

“don’t do any more dumb shit, daniel!” lucy called after him. 

wilbur sighed, slumping down on the wall by the bathroom. he rested his head on his knees, shutting his eyes. this was happening, and it was all his fault. and he had to explain everything to tommy. this was such a fucking nightmare.

“you look like a mess,” techno said from behind him. “did you get the tickets?”

wilbur raised his hand, clutching the tickets tightly.

“that girl at the till was really flirtin’ with you, huh?” techno asked. “what a simp,”

wilbur didn’t answer. 

-*-*-

the train station was quiet. it almost seemed haunted. tommy’s ghost friend was really helping with that atmosphere. tommy didn’t speak a single word, even though the ghost boy was clearly chatting away, although wilbur couldn’t make any of it out. whenever the ghost spoke, it sounded distorted and watery, as though he was speaking through bubbles. though tommy never seemed to have any troubles understanding him.

wilbur was rocking on his heels as they waited for the train. techno was fidgeting nervously, phil was on his phone, and tommy hadn’t said anything to anyone all fucking day. not even phil, even though tommy was often hiding behind him and hiding his face from wilbur’s view.

wilbur didn’t mind. he understood the feeling. 

“when is the train getting here?” techno asked quietly.

phil checked his phone. “uhhh,” he tapped a couple times. “ten minutes, i think. are you ok?”

techno shrugged, letting his hoodie hide himself further. “i’m good. don’t worry,” he muttered. “i hate this,” he whispered to wilbur.

wilbur sighed. “yeah, same here. sorry,”

techno didn’t answer.

no one spoke for a long while, which no one seemed to mind. it was tense and awkward, and wilbur knew that it was all his fault. he could admit when he was wrong, but he struggled with apologizing or explaining his actions. so this train ride was going to be actual hell.

speak of the devil, wilbur heard the faint sounds of a train rattling on the tracks. he braved himself for the noise, and it still managed to make his ears rings. stupid old train stations and their shitty rails. he gripped his suitcase handle harder as the train slowed to a stop. no turning back now.

techno shot him a look before scurrying into the car. phil followed, tommy right on his tail. wilbur sucked in a deep breath and stepped onto the train.

no going back. this was happening.

they situated themselves in a car. the train was mostly empty, thank god, and it was so very quiet. tommy was pressed close to phil’s side and was staring straight at the floor, no emotion on his face. it was heart breaking. techno was close to the window, his hood up and pushing his ears forward. and wilbur was sitting stiffly, his leg bouncing anxiously.

phil shot him a look then tilted his head slightly in tommy’s direction. wilbur got the message.

“so,” he started lamely. “this is fun,” 

techno stifled a snort with very little success. phil hid his face with one hand, but his shoulders were shaking in near silent laughter. even tommy looked up to shoot him a sort of What The Fuck look.

wilbur smiled to himself. “so...” what the fuck was he supposed to say? the only time he’d ever explained his condition was when he first met phil. he had just started it with ‘i have to eat people to survive’ and then went from there. but he couldn’t just say that now, could he?

he didn’t realize he had forgotten to breath until techno gripped his hand. he let out a huff of air and closed his eyes.”i’m guessing i need to explain,” he said. “or else phil’s going to punt me to the moon and back,”

phil smiled calmly and nodded. 

wilbur opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. he swallowed the entirety in his throat and looked down, squeezing techno’s hand in their usual morse code.

 _‘i’m scared’_ he squeezed.

 _‘it’s gonna be ok’_ techno replied.

“i...” where was he supposed to start? full backstory? “i don’t know what i’m supposed to say,” he admitted in a whisper. 

phil sighed. “wilbur isn’t human,” he explained to tommy. good start. “he’s... i actually don’t know what he is. but he isn’t human,”

blank stare from tommy. this was going great so far. (sarcasm.)

“i’m...” wilbur cleared his throat. he wouldn’t cry. “fuck, sorry,” he pinched his eyes shut. “i have a... a condition, i guess. i can’t... survive on my own, i guess? like how people need food, i need more. y’know. like people,” he paused for a moment. did he explain it well enough? probably not. “i... i don’t want to. if i had the choice i wouldn’t.. . fuck,” he was starting to cry goddammit. Don’t Cry was literally his only goal.

techno squeezed his hand. “you good?” he whispered.

wilbur nodded, took a breath, and kept talking. “do you know sirens?” he asked. “like in greek mythology?” tommy shook his head and wilbur sighed. “god you’re making this difficult,” he muttered. “ok. sirens are basically water spirits that lure sailors and shit to them to kill them. although it’s very odd, because the only reason the men die is because they think they have the right to approach these women even though all they’re doing is singing, so it’s technically the men’s fault—“

“will,” phil interjected. “where are you going with this?” he asked.

“yeah, i’m lost,” techno added. 

“i was getting to the point that i’m kind of like a siren, but i’m not a woman minding her own business waiting for a man to come and try to get me to do whatever he wants,” wilbur said. “i’m more of the idea of a siren. i lure people, kind of, and then i eat them to survive,” he looked down. “i don’t like it just as much as you,” he added in a small whisper. 

no one spoke for a while. wilbur wasn’t sure if anyone even knew what to say. which was fair, he’d gotten that reaction before. not that he’d told that many people, only his family knew. (and dream, but that was mostly an accident.) (charlie slimecicle also knew, but that was entirely an accident.)

tommy made a small hum and closed his eyes. it seemed the conversation was over. mission accomplished? question mark?

the train rattled on. phil had fallen asleep some time ago, leaning his head on the back of his chair. (ha. short.) techno had managed to fall asleep with his head in wilbur’s lap, which neither of them particularly. tommy was staring out the window with glassy eyes. he looked like he was thinking too much too fast, and wilbur couldn’t blame him. 

“hey,” wilbur said into the silence. “i’m... i’m so sorry,” he wasn’t sure what else to say.

tommy didn’t answer.

wilbur looked at his hands resting against techno’s hair. “i guess i ruined everything, didn’t i?”

no response.

wilbur leaned his head back against his seat like phil, making the side of his neck sting. he looked back down, settling to just let his neck go limp. he put his headphones on, and pressed play. an old recording he made came on. it was from a couple years ago, when nobody was home and all he had was his guitar and words on his tongue. he would never share it with anyone. not as himself, at least. it was scary baring your soul like that.

he looked to tommy. he looked so... hollow. the fact that wilbur made him look that way made wilbur’s heart ache. he had sworn to himself to never do this shit again, and here he was, on a train to the middle of nowhere, having done it again. (yes. again. believe it or not, this had happened before.) (it didn’t hurt like this, though. this hurt so fucking badly.)

wilbur let his eyes slip shut, letting the unfamiliar sound of his voice wash over the sharper edges of his thoughts.

he could fix this.

he kind of had to, didn’t he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was a shorter chapter, partly because Fuck You and partly because i wanted to make up for my long absence between the Park and Lisa chapters. and i didn’t want to leave y’all hanging for toooo long. [i know my explanation is shit, but i’ll be putting much more detail next chapter dw.) (also luna my beloved, you existed for like thirty seconds but you’ll forever live in my head rent free <3)
> 
> also i’ve been watching too much rupauls drag race please tell me who your favourite drag queen and i’ll tell you why mine is crystal methyd (and bianca del rio but everyone loves bianca so)
> 
> alright off i go to disappear for a while whilst i work on the next chapter. it’s a long one, so it may take a while. 
> 
> au revoir, mwah mwah <3 /p

**Author's Note:**

> drink some water, u deserve it :]  
> you are all my beloveds <3


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